University of California • Berkeley
THE NEGRO PROBLEM
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON.
The
Negro Problem
o O
A SERIES OF ARTICLES BY
REPRESENTATIVE AMERI-
CAN NEGROES OF TO-DAY
r
Contributions by
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON, Principal of
Tuskegee Institute, W. E. BURGHARDT
DuBois, PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR,
CHARLES W. CHESNUTT, and others
New Tork
JAMES POTT & COMPANY
1903
Copyright, 1903, by James Pott & Company
E/85
REESE
PRINTED SEPTEMBER, 1903
CONTENTS
I Industrial Education for the Negro
Booker T. Washington j
II The Talented Tenth
W. E. Eurghardt DuBois 3 1
III The Disfranchisement of the Ne-
gro Charles W. Chesnutt 77
IV The Negro and the Law
WilfordH. Smith 125
V The Characteristics of the Negro
People H. T. Kealing 161
VI Representative American Negroes
Paul Laurence Dunbar 187
VII The Negro's Place in American
Life at the Present Day
T. Thomas Fortune 1 1 1
192765
Industrial Education for the Negro
By BOOKER T. WASHINGTON,
Principal of Tuskegee Institute
The necessity for the race's learning the difference be-
tween being worked and working. He would not confine
the Negro to industrial life, but believes that the very best
service which any one can render to what is called the
" higher education" is to teach the present generation to
work and save. This will create the wealth from which
alone can come leisure and the opportunity for higher
education.
INDUSTRIAL EDUCATION FOR
THE NEGRO
[One of the most fundamental and far-reach-
ing deeds that has been accomplished during
the last quarter of a century has been that by
which the Negro has been helped to find him-
self and to learn the secrets of civilization — to
learn that there are a few simple, cardinal prin-
'ciples upon which a race must start its upward
course, unless it would fail, and its last estate
be worse than its first. /
It has been necessary for the Negro to learn
the difference between being worked and work-
ing— to learn that being worked meant degra-
dation, while working means civilization; that
all forms of labor are honorable, and all forms
of idleness disgraceful. It has been necessary
for him to learn that all races that have got
[9]
The Negro Problem
upon their feet have done so largely by laying
an economic foundation, and, in general, by
beginning in a proper cultivation and owner-
ship of the soil.
Forty years ago my race emerged from slav-
ery into freedom. If, in too many cases, the
Negro race began development at the wrong
end, it was largely because neither white nor
black properly understood the case. Nor is it
any wonder that this was so, for never before
in the history of the world had just such a
problem been presented as that of the two races
at the coming of freedom in this country.
For two hundred and fifty years, I believe
the way for the redemption of the Negro was
being prepared through industrial development.
Through all those years the Southern white
man did business with the Negro in a way that
no one else has done business with him. In
most cases if a Southern white man wanted a
house built he consulted a Negro mechanic
about the plan and about the actual building of
the structure. If he wanted a suit of clothes
[10]
Industrial Education
made he went to a Negro tailor, and" for shoes
he went to a shoemaker of the same race. In
a certain way every slave plantation in the
South was an industrial school. On these
plantations young colored men and women
were constantly being trained not only as farm-
ers but as carpenters, blacksmiths, wheel-
wrights, brick masons, engineers, cooks, laun-
dresses, sewing women and housekeepers.
I do not mean in any way to apologize for
the curse of slavery, which was a curse to both
races, but in what I say about industrial train-
ing in slavery I am simply stating facts. This
training was crude, and was given for selfish
purposes. It did not answer the highest ends,
because there was an absence of mental train-
ing in connection with the training of the hand.
To a large degree, though, this business con-
tact with the Southern white man, and the in-
dustrial training on the plantations, left the
Negro at the close of the war in possession of
nearly all the common and skilled labor in the
South. The industries that gave the South
The Negro Problem
its power, prominence and wealth prior to the
Civil War were mainly the raising of cotton,
sugar cane, rice and tobacco. Before the way
could be prepared for the proper growing and
marketing of these crops forests had to be
cleared, houses to be built, public roads and
railroads constructed. In all these works the
Negro did most of the heavy work. In the
planting, cultivating and marketing of the
crops not only was the Negro the chief depend-
ence, but in the manufacture of tobacco he be-
came a skilled and proficient workman, and in
this, up to the present time, in the South, holds
the lead in the large tobacco manufactories.
In most of the industries, though, what hap-
pened? For nearly twenty years after the
war, except in a few instances, the value of the
industrial training given by the plantations
was overlooked. Negro men and women
were educated in literature, in mathematics and
in the sciences, with little thought of what had
been taking place during the preceding two
hundred and fifty years, except, perhaps, as
[12]
Industrial Education
something to be escaped, to be got as far away
from as possible. As a generation began to
pass, those who had been trained as mechanics
in slavery began to disappear by death, and
gradually it began to be realized that there
were few to take their places. There were
young men educated in foreign tongues, but
few in carpentry or in mechanical or architect-
ural drawing. Many were trained in Latin,
but few as engineers and blacksmiths. Too
many were taken from the farm and educated,
but educated in everything but farming. For
this reason they had no interest in farming and
did not return to it. And yet eighty-five per
cent, of the Negro population of the Southern
states lives and for a considerable time will
continue to live in the country districts. The
charge is often brought against the members of
my race — and too often justly, I confess — that
they are found leaving the country districts and
flocking into the great cities where temptations
are more frequent and harder to resist, and
where the Negro people too often become de-
The Negro Problem
moralized. Think, though, how frequently it
is the case that from the first day that a pupil
begins to go to school his books teach him
much about the cities of the world and city life,
and almost nothing about the country. How
natural it is, then, that when he has the order-
ing of his life he wants to live it in the city.
Only a short time before his death the late
Mr. C. P. Huntington, to whose memory a
magnificent library has just been given by his
widow to the Hampton Institute for Negroes,
in Virginia, said in a public address some
words which seem to me so wise that I want to
quote them here :
"Our schools teach everybody a little of al-
most everything, but, in my opinion, they
teach very few children just what they ought
to know in order to make their way success-
fully in life. They do not put into their hands
the tools they are best fitted to use, and hence
so many failures. Many a mother and sister
have worked and slaved, living upon scanty
food, in order to give a son and brother a "lib-
[14]
Industrial Education
eral education," and in doing this have built
up a barrier between the boy and the work he
was fitted to do. Let me say to you that all
honest work is honorable work. If the labor
is manual, and seems common, you will have
all the more chance to be thinking of other
things, or of work that is higher and brings
better pay, and to work out in your minds bet-
ter and higher duties and responsibilities for
yourselves, and for thinking of ways by which
you can help others as well as yourselves, and
bring them up to your own higher level."
Some years ago, when we decided to make
tailoring a part of our training at the Tuskegee i/
Institute, I was amazed to find that it was al-
most impossible to find in the whole country
an educated colored man who could teach the
making of clothing. We could find numbers
of tfiem who could teach astronomy, theology,
Latin or grammar, but almost none who could
instruct in the making of clothing, something
that has to be used by every one of us every
day in the year. How often have I been dis-
[15]
The Negro Problem
couraged as I have gone through the South,
and into the homes of the people of my race,
and have found women who could converse in-
telligently upon abstruse subjects, and yet
could not tell how to improve the condition of
the poorly cooked and still more poorly served
bread and meat which they and their fam-
ilies were eating three times a day. It is
discouraging to find a girl who can tell you the
geographical location of any country on the
globe and who does not know where to place
the dishes upon a common dinner table. It is
discouraging to find a woman who knows much
about theoretical chemistry, and who cannot
properly wash and iron a shirt.
In what I say here I would not by any means
have it understood that I would limit or cir-
cumscribe the mental development of the Negro
student. No race can be lifted until its mind
is awakened and strengthened. By the side
of industrial training should always go mental
and moral training, but the pushing of mere
abstract knowledge into the head means little.
[16]
Industrial Education
We want more than the mere performance of
mental gymnastics. Our knowledge must be
harnessed to the things of real life. I would
encourage the Negro to secure all the mental
strength, all the mental culture — whether
gleaned from science, mathematics, history,
language or literature that his circumstances
will allow, but I believe most earnestly that for
years to come the education of the people of
my race should be so directed that the greatest
proportion of the mental strength of the masses
will be brought to bear upon the every-day
practical things of life, upon something that is
needed to be done, and something which they
will be permitted to do in the community in
which they reside. And just the same with
the professional class which the race needs and
must have, I would say give the men and wo-
men of that class, too, the training which will
best fit them to perform in the most successful
manner the service which the race demands.
I would not confine the race to industrial life,
not even to agriculture, for example, although
The Negro Problem
I believe that by far the greater part of the Ne~
race is best off in the country districts and
must and should continue to live there, but I
would teach the race that in industry the found-
ation must be laid — that the very best service
which any one can render to what is called the t
higher education is to teach the present gener-
ation to provide a material or industrial foun-
dation. On such a foundation as this will grow
habits of thrift, a love of work, economy, own-
ership of property, bank accounts. Out of it
in the future will grow practical education,
professional education, positions of public re-
sponsibility. Out of it will grow moral and
religious strength. Out of it will grow wealth
from which alone can come leisure and the op-
portunity for the enjoyment of literature and
the fine arts.
In the words of the late beloved Frederick
Douglass : "Every blow of the sledge hammer
wielded by a sable arm is a powerful blow 'in
support of our cause. Every colored mechan-
ic is by virtue of circumstances an elevator of
[18]
Industrial Education
his race. Every house built by a black man is
a strong tower against the allied hosts of pre-
judice. It is impossible for us to attach too
much importance to this aspect of the subject.
)Vithout industrial development there can be
no wealth ; without wealth there can be no leis-
ure; without leisure no opportunity for
thoughtful reflection and the cultivation of the
higher arts."
I would set no limits to the attainments of
the Negro in arts, in letters or statesmanship,
"but I believe the surest way to reach those ends
is by laying the foundation in the little things
•of life that lie immediately about one's door.
I plead for industrial education and develop-
ment for the Negro not because I want to
•cramp him, but because I want to free him. I
want to see him enter the all-powerful business
and commercial world.
It was such combined mental, moral and in-
dustrial^ education which the late General Arm-
strong set out to give at the Hampton Institute
when he established that school thirty years
[19]
The Negro Problem
ago. The Hampton Institute has continued
along the lines laid down by its great founder,
and now each year an increasing number of
similar schools are being established in the
South, for the people of both races.
Early in the history of the Tuskegee Insti-
tute we began to combine industrial training
with mental and moral culture. Our first ef-
forts were in the direction of agriculture, and
we began teaching this with no appliances ex-
cept one hoe and a blind mule. From this
small beginning we have grown until now the
Institute owns two thousand acres of land,
eight hundred of which are cultivated each year
by the young men of the school. We began
teaching wheelwrighting and blacksmithing in
a small way to the men, and laundry work,
cooking and sewing and housekeeping to the
young women. The fourteen hundred and over
young men and women who attended the school
during the last school year received instruction
— in addition to academic and religious training
— in thirty-three trades and industries, includ-
[20]
Industrial Education
ing carpentry, blacksmithing, printing, wheel-
wrighting, harnessmaking, painting, machin-
ery, founding, shoemaking, brickmasonry and
brickmaking, plastering, sawmilling, tinsmith-
ing, tailoring, mechanical and architectural
drawing, electrical and steam engineering,
canning, sewing, dressmaking, millinery, cook-
ing, laundering, housekeeping, mattress mak-
ing, basketry, nursing, agriculture, dairying
and stock raising, horticulture.
Not only do the students receive instruction
in these trades, but they do actual work, by
means of which more than half of them pay
some part or all of their expenses while re-
maining at the school. Of the sixty buildings
belonging to the school all but four were al-
most wholly erected by the students as a part
of their industrial education. Even the bricks
which go into the walls are made by students
in the school's brick yard, in which, last year,
they manufactured two million bricks.
When we first began this work at Tuskegee,
and the idea got spread among the people of
[21]
The Negro Problem
my race that the students who came to the Tus-
kegee school were to be taught industries in
connection with their academic studies, were,
in other words, to be taught to work, I received
a great many verbal messages and letters from
parents informing me that they wanted their
children taught books, but not how to work.
This protest went on for three or four years,
but I am glad to be able to say now that our
people have very generally been educated to a
point where they see their own needs and con-
ditions so clear ly that it has been several years
since we have had a single protest from par-
ents against the teaching of industries, and
there is now a positive enthusiasm for it. In
fact, public sentiment among the students at
Tuskegee is now so strong for industrial train-
ing that it would hardly permit a student to re-
main on the grounds who was unwilling to
labor.
It seems to me that too often mere book ed-
ucation leaves the Negro young man or wo-
man in a weak position. For example, I have
[22]
Industrial Education
seen a Negro girl taught by her mother to help
her in doing laundry work at home. Later,
when this same girl was graduated from the
public schools or a high school and returned
home she finds herself educated out of sym-
pathy with laundry work, and yet not able to
find anything to do which seems in keeping
with the cost and character of her education.
Under these circumstances we cannot be sur-
prised if she does not fulfill the expectations
made for her. What should have been done
for her, it seems to me, was to give her along
with her academic education thorough train-
ing in the latest and best methods of laundry
work, so that she could have put so much skill
and intelligence into it that the work would
have been lifted out from the plane of drudg-
gery. The home which she would then have
been able to found by the results of her work
would have enabled her to help her children to
take a still more responsible position in life.
Almost from the first Tuskegee has kept in
mind — and this I think should be the policy of
[23]
The Negro Problem
all industrial schools — fitting students for oc-
cupations which would be open to them in their
home communities. Some years ago we
noted the fact that there was beginning to be a
demand in the South for men to operate dair-
ies in a skillful, modern manner. We opened
a dairy department in connection with the
school, where a number of young men could
have instruction in the latest and most scien-
tific methods of dairy work. At present we
have calls — mainly from Southern white men
— for twice as many dairymen as we are able
to supply. What is equally satisfactory, the
reports which come to us indicate that our
young men are giving the highest satisfaction
and are fast changing and improving the dairy
product in the communities into which they go.
I use the dairy here as an example. What I
have said of this is equally true of many of the
other industries which we teach. | Aside from
the economic value of this work I cannot but
believe, and my observation confirms me in my
belief, that as we continue to place Negro men
[24]
Industrial Education
and women of intelligence, religion, modesty,
conscience and skill in every community in the
South, who will prove by actual results their
value to the community, I cannot but believe,
I say, that this will constitute a solution to
many of the present political and social diffi-
culties, f
Many seem to think that industrial education
is meant to make the Negro work as he work-
ed in the days of slavery. This is far from
my conception of industrial education. If this
training is worth anything to the Negro, it con-
sists in teaching him how not to work, but how
to make the forces of nature — air, steam, wa-
ter, horse-power and electricity — work for him.
If it has any value it is in lifting labor up out
of toil and drudgery into the plane of the dig-
nified and the beautiful. The Negro in the
South works and works hard ; but too often his
ignorance and lack of skill causes him to do his
work in the most costly and shiftless manner,
and this keeps him near the bottom of the lad-
der in the economic world.
[25]
The Negro Problem
I have not emphasized particularly in these
pages the great need of training the Negro in
agriculture, but I believe that this branch of in-
dustrial education does need very great em-
phasis. In this connection I want to quote
some words which Mr. Edgar Gardner
Murphy, of Montgomery, Alabama, has re-
cently written upon this subject:
"We must incorporate into our public school
system a larger recognition of the practical and
industrial elements in educational training.
Ours is an agricultural population. The school
must be brought more closely to the soil. The
teaching of history, for example, is all very
well, but nobody can really know anything of
history unless he has been taught to see things
grow — has so seen things not only with the
outward eye, but with the eyes of his intelli-
gence and conscience. The actual things of
the present are more important, however, than
the institutions of the past. Even to young
children can be shown the simpler conditions
and processes of growth — how corn is put into*
[26]
Industrial Education
the ground — how cotton and potatoes should
be planted — how to choose the soil best adapt-
ed to a particular plant, how to improve that
soil, how to care for the plant while it grows,
how to get the most value out of it, how to use
the elements of waste for the fertilization of
other crops; how, through the alternation of
crops, the land may be made to increase
the annual value of its products — these things,
upon their elementary side are absolutely vital
to the worth and success of hundreds of thous-
ands of these people of the Negro race, and
yet our whole educational system has practi-
cally ignored them.
******
"Such work will mean not only an education
in agriculture, but an education through agri-
culture and education, through natural sym-
bols and practical forms, which will educate as
deeply, as broadly and as truly as any other
system which the world has known. Such
changes will bring far larger results than the
mere improvement of our Negroes. They
[27]
The Negro Problem
will give us an agricultural class, a class of ten-
ants or small land owners, trained not away
from the soil, but in relation to the soil and in
intelligent dependence upon its resources."
I close, then, as I began, by saying that as a
slave the Negro was worked, and that as a
freeman he must learn to work. There is still
doubt in many quarters as to the ability of the
Negro unguided, unsupported, to hew his cfwn
path and put into visible, tangible, indisputable
form, products and signs of civilization. This
doubt cannot be much affected by abstract ar-
guments, no matter how delicately and con-
vincingly woven together. Patiently, quietly,
doggedly, persistently, through summer and
winter, sunshine and shadow, by self-sacrifice,
by foresight, by honesty and industry, we must
re-enforce argument with results. One farm
bought, one house built, one home sweetly and
intelligently kept, one man who is the largest
tax payer or has the largest bank account, one
school or church maintained, one factory run-
ning successfully, one truck garden profitably
[28]
Industrial Education
cultivated, one patient cured by a Negro doctor,
one sermon well preached, one office well filled,
one life cleanly lived — these will tell more in
our favor than all the abstract eloquence that
can be summoned to plead our cause. Our
pathway must be up through the soil, up
through swamps, up through forests, up
through the streams, the rocks, up through
commerce, education and religion!
[29]
The Talented Tenth
By PROF. W. E. BURGHARDT DuBois
A strong plea for the higher education of the Negro,
which those who are interested in the future of the freed-
men cannot afford to ignore. Prof. DuBois produces
ample evidence to prove conclusively the truth of his state-
ment that " to attempt to establish any sort of a system of
common and industrial school training, without first pro-
viding for the higher training of the very best teachers, is
simply throwing your money to the winds."
W. E. BURGHARDT DuBOIS.
THE TALENTED TENTH
The Negro race, like all races, is going to be
saved by its exceptional men. The problem of
education, then, among Negroes mug^rst of
all deal with the Talented Tenth ; it is the prob-
lem of developing the Best of this race that
they may guide the Mass away from the con-
tamination and death of the Worst, in their
own and other races. Now the training of
men is a difficult and intricate task. Its tech-
nique is a matter for educational experts, but
its object is for the vision of seers. If we
make money the object of man-training, we
shall develop money-makers but not necessarily
men; if we make technical skill the object of
education, we may possess artisans but not, in
nature, men. Men we shall have only as we
make manhood the object of the work of the
schools — intelligence, broad sympathy, knowl-
[33]
The Negro Problem
edge of the world that was and is, and of the
relation of men to it — this is the curriculum
of that Higher Education which must under-
lie true life. On this foundation we may build
bread winning, skill of hand and quickness of
brain, with never a fear lest the child and man
mistake the means of living for the object of
life.
If this be true — and who can deny it — three
tasks lay before me ; first to show from the past
that the Talented Tenth as they have risen
among American Negroes have been worthy
of leadership; secondly, to show how these
men may be educated and developed; and
thirdly, to show their relation to the Negro
problem.
You misjudge us because you do not know
us. From the very first it has been*the edu-
cated and intelligent of the Negro people that
have led and elevated the mass, and the sole
obstacles that nullified and retarded their ef-
forts were slavery and race prejudice; for what
[34]
The Talented Tenth
is slavery but the legalized survival of the un-
fit and the nullification of the work of natural
internal leadership? Negro leadership, there-
fore, sought from the first to rid the race of
this awful incubus that it might make way for
natural selection and the survival of the fittest.
In colonial days came Phillis Wheatley and
Paul Cuffe striving against the bars of preju-
dice; and Benjamin Banneker, the almanac
maker, voiced their longings when he said to
Thomas Jefferson, "I freely and cheerfully ac-
knowledge that I am of the African race, and
in colour which is natural to them, of the deep-
est dye; and it is under a sense of the most
profound gratitude to the Supreme Ruler of
the Universe, that I now confess to you that
I am not under that state of tyrannical thral-
dom and inhuman captivity to which too many
of my brethren are doomed, but that I have
abundantly tasted of the fruition of those
blessings which proceed from that free and un-
equalled liberty with which you are favored,
and which I hope you will willingly allow, you-
have mercifully received from the immediate
[35]
The Negro Problem
hand of that Being from whom proceedeth
every good and perfect gift.
"Suffer me to recall to your mind that time,
in which the arms of the British crown were
exerted with every powerful effort, in order to
reduce you to a state of servitude; look back,
I entreat you, on the variety of dangers to
which you were exposed; reflect on that per-
iod in which every human aid appeared un-
available, and in which even hope and forti-
tude wore the aspect of inability to the conflict,
and you cannot but be led to a serious and
grateful sense of your miraculous and provi-
dential preservation, you cannot but acknowl-
edge, that the present freedom and tranquility
which you enjoy, you have mercifully re-
ceived, and that a peculiar blessing of heaven.
"This, sir, was a time when you clearly saw
into the injustice of a state of Slavery, and in
which you had just apprehensions of the hor-
rors of its condition. It was then that your
abhorrence thereof was so excited, that you
publicly held forth this true and invaluable doc-
trine, which is worthy to be recorded and re-
[36]
The Talented Tenth
membered in all succeeding ages: 'We hold
these truths to be self evident, that all men are
created equal ; that they are endowed with cer-
tain inalienable rights, and that among these
are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.' '
Then came Dr. James Derham, who could
tell even the learned Dr. Rush something of
medicine, and Lemuel Haynes, to whom Mid-
dlebury College gave an honorary A. M. in
1804. These and others we may call the Re-
volutionary group of distinguished Negroes —
they were persons of marked ability, leaders of
a Talented Tenth, standing conspicuously
among the best of their time. They strove by
word and deed to save the color line from be-
coming the line between the bond and free,
but all they could do was nullified by Eli Whit-
ney and the Curse of Gold. So they passed
into forgetfulness.
But their spirit did not wholly die ; here and
there in the early part of the century came
other exceptional men. Some were natural
-sons of unnatural fathers and were given often
[37]
The Negro Problem
a liberal training and thus a race of educated
mulattoes sprang up to plead for black men's
rights. There was Ira Aldridge, whom all
Europe loved to honor; there was that Voice
crying in the Wilderness, David Walker, and
saying :
"I declare it does appear to me as though
some nations think God is asleep, or that he
made the Africans for nothing else but to dig
their mines and work their farms, or they can-
not believe history, sacred or profane. I ask
every man who has a heart, and is blessed with
the privilege of believing — Is not God a God
of justice to all his creatures? Do you say he
is? Then if he gives peace and tranquility to
tyrants and permits them to keep our fathers,
our mothers, ourselves and our children in
eternal ignorance and wretchedness to support
them and their families, would he be to us a
God of Justice ? I ask, O, ye Christians, who
hold us and our children in the most abject ig-
norance and degradation that ever a people
were afflicted with since the world began — I
[38]
The Talented Tenth
say if God gives you peace and tranquility, and
suffers you thus to go on afflicting us, and our
children, who have never given you the least
provocation — would He be to us a God of Jus-
tice? If you will allow that we are men, who
feel for each other, does not the blood of our
fathers and of us, their children, cry aloud to
the Lord of Sabaoth against you for the cruel-
ties and murders with which you have and do
continue to afflict us?"
This was the wild voice that first aroused
Southern legislators in 1829 to the terrors of
abolitionism.
In 1831 there met that first Negro conven-
tion in Philadelphia, at which the world gaped
curiously but which bravely attacked the prob-
lems of race and slavery, crying out against
persecution and declaring that "Laws as cruel
in themselves as they were unconstitutional
and unjust, have in many places been enacted
against our poor, unfriended and unoffending
brethren (without a shadow of provocation
on our part), at whose bare recital the very
[39]
The Negro Problem
savage draws himself up for fear of contagion
— looks noble and prides himself because he
bears not the name of Christian." Side by side
this free Negro movement, and the movement
for abolition, strove until they merged into
one strong stream. Too little notice has been
taken of the work which the Talented Tenth
among Negroes took in the great abolition
crusade. From the very day that a Philadel-
phia colored man became the first subscriber to
Garrison's "Liberator," to the day when Negro
soldiers made the Emancipation Proclamation
possible, black leaders worked shoulder to
shoulder with white men in a movement, the
success of which would have been impossible
without them. There was Purvis and Re-
mond, Pennington and Highland Garnett, So-
journer Truth and Alexander Crummel, and
above all, Frederick Douglass — what would
the abolition movement have been without
them? They stood as living examples of the
possibilities of the Negro race, their own hard
experiences and well wrought culture said si-
[40]
The Talented Tenth
lently more than all the drawn periods of ora-
tors— they were the men who made American
slavery impossible. As Maria Weston Chap-
man once said, from the school of anti-slavery
agitation "a throng of authors, editors, law-
yers, orators and accomplished gentlemen of
color have taken their degree! It has equally
implanted hopes and aspirations, noble
thoughts, and sublime purposes, in the hearts
of both races. It has prepared the white man
for the freedom of the black man, and it has
made the black man scorn the thought of en-
slavement, as does a white man, as far as its
influence has extended. Strengthen that noble
influence! Before its organization, the coun-
try only saw here and there in slavery some
faithful Cudjoe or Dinah, whose strong na-
tures blossomed even in bondage, like a fine
plant beneath a heavy stone. Now, under the
elevating and cherishing influence of the
American Anti-slavery Society, the colored
race, like the white, furnishes Corinthian cap-
itals for the noblest temples."
[41]
The Negro Problem
Where were these black abolitionists train-
ed? Some, like Frederick Douglass, were
self-trained, but yet trained liberally; others,
like Alexander Crummell and McCune Smith,
graduated from famous foreign universities.
Most of them rose up through the colored
schools of New York and Philadelphia and
Boston, taught by college-bred men like Russ-
worm, of Dartmouth, and college-bred white
men like Neau and Benezet.
After emancipation came a new group of
educated and gifted leaders: Langston, Bruce
and Elliot, Greener, Williams and Payne.
Through political organization, historical and
polemic writing and moral regeneration, these
men strove to uplift their people. It is the
fashion of to-day to sneer at them and to say
that with freedom Negro leadership should
have begun at the plow and not in the Senate
— a foolish and mischievous lie; two hundred
and fifty years that black serf toiled at the
plow and yet that toiling was in vain till the
Senate passed the war amendments; and two
[42]
The Talented Tenth
hundred and fifty years more the half-free serf
of to-day may toil at his plow, but unless he
have political rights and righteously guarded
civic status, he will still remain the poverty-
stricken and ignorant plaything of rascals,
that he now is. This all sane men know even
if they dare not say it.
And so we come to the present — a day of
cowardice and vacillation, of strident wide-
voiced wrong and faint hearted compromise;
of double-faced dallying with Truth and
Right. Who are to-day guiding the work of
the Negro people? The "exceptions" of
course. And yet so sure as this Talented
Tenth is pointed out, the blind worshippers of
the Average cry out in alarm : "These are ex-
ceptions, look here at death, disease and crime
— these are the happy rule." Of course they
are the rule, because a silly nation made them
the rule : Because for three long centuries this
people lynched Negroes who dared to be brave,
raped black women who dared to be virtuous,
crushed dark-hued youth who dared to be am-
[43]
The Negro Problem
bitious, and encouraged and made to flourish
servility and lewdness and apathy. But not
even this was able to crush all manhood and
chastity and aspiration from black folk. A
saving remnant continually survives and per-
sists, continually aspires, continually shows
itself in thrift and ability and character. Ex-
ceptional it is to be sure, but this is its chiefest
promise; it shows the capability of Negro
blood, the promise of black men. Do Amer-
icans ever stop to reflect that there are in this
land a million men of Negro blood, well-edu-
cated, owners of homes, against the honor of
whose womanhood no breath was ever raised,
whose men occupy positions of trust and use-
fulness, and who, judged by any standard,
have reached the full measure of the best type
of modern European culture? Is it fair, is it
decent, is it Christian to ignore these facts of
the Negro problem, to belittle such aspiration,
to nullify such leadership and seek to crush
these people back into the mass out of which
by toil and travail, they and their fathers have
raised themselves?
[44]
The Talented Tenth
Can the masses of the Negro people be in
any possible way more quickly raised than by
the effort and example of this aristocracy of
talent and character? Was there ever a na-
tion on God's fair earth civilized from the bot-
tom upward? Never; it is, ever was and ever
will be from the top downward that culture
filters. The Talented Tenth rises and pulls all
that are worth the saving up to their vantage
ground. This is the history of human pro-
gress; and the two historic mistakes which
have hindered that progress were the thinking
first that no more could ever rise save the few
already risen; or second, that it would better
the unrisen to pull the risen down.
How then shall the leaders of a struggling
people be trained and the hands of the risen
few strengthened? There can be but one an-
swer : The best and most capable of their youth
must be schooled in the colleges and universi-
ties of the land. We will not quarrel as to
just what the university of the Negro should
[45]
The Negro Problem
teach or how it should teach it — I willingly ad-
mit that each soul and each race-soul needs its
own peculiar curriculum. But this is true:
A university is a human invention for the
transmission of knowledge and culture from
generation to generation, through the training
of quick minds and pure hearts, and for this
work no other human invention will suffice,
not even trade and industrial schools.
All men cannot go to college but some men
must; every isolated group or nation must
have its yeast, must have for the talented few
centers of training where men are not so mys-
tified and befuddled by the hard and necessary
toil of earning a living, as to have no aims
higher than their bellies, and no God
greater than Gold. This is true training,
and thus in the beginning were the favored
sons of the freedmen trained. Out of
the colleges of the North came, after the blood
of war, Ware, Cravath, Chase, Andrews, Bum-
stead and Spence to build the foundations of
knowledge and civilization in the black South.
[46]
The Talented Tenth
Where ought they to have begun to build ? At
the bottom, of course, quibbles the mole with
his eyes in the earth. Aye! truly at the bot-
tom, at the very bottom; at the bottom of
knowledge, down in the very depths of knowl-
edge there where the roots of justice strike
into the lowest soil of Truth. And so they
did begin; they founded colleges, and up from
the colleges shot normal schools, and out from
the normal schools went teachers, and around
the normal teachers clustered other teachers
to teach the public schools; the college trained
in Greek and Latin and mathematics, 2,000
men; and these men trained full 50,000 others
in morals and manners, and they in turn
taught thrift and the alphabet to nine millions
of men, who to-day hold $300,000,000 of
property. It was a miracle — the most won-
derful peace-battle of the I9th century, and
yet to-day men smile at it, and in fine super-
iority tell us that it was all a strange mistake;
that a proper way to found a system of edu-
cation is first to gather the children and buy
[47]
The Negro Problem
them spelling books and hoes; afterward men
may look about for teachers, if haply they may
find them; or again they would teach men
Work, but as for Life — why, what has Work
to do with Life, they ask vacantly.
Was the work of these college founders suc-
cessful ; did it stand the test of time ? Did the
college graduates, with all their fine theories
of life, really live? Are they useful men help-
ing to civilize and elevate their less fortunate
fellows? Let us see. Omitting all institu-
tions which have not actually graduated stud-
ents from a college course, there are to-day in
the United States thirty-four institutions giv-
ing something above high school training to
Negroes and designed especially for this race.
Three of these were established in border
States before the War; thirteen were planted
by the Freedmen's Bureau in the years 1864-
1869; nine were established between 1870 and
1880 by various church bodies; five were es-
tablished after 1881 by Negro churches, and.
four are state institutions supported by United
[48]
The Talented Tenth
States' agricultural funds. In most cases the
college departments are small adjuncts to high
and common school work. As a matter of
fact six institutions — Atlanta, Fisk, Howard,
Shaw, Wilberforce and Leland, are the im-
portant Negro colleges so far as actual work
and number of students are concerned. In all
these institutions, seven hundred and fifty
Negro college students are enrolled. In grade
the best of these colleges are about a year be-
hind the smaller New England colleges and a
typical curriculum is that of Atlanta Univer-
sity. Here students from the grammar grades,
after a three years' high school course, take a
college course of 136 weeks. One-fourth of
this time is given to Latin and Greek; one-
fifth, to English and modern languages; one-
sixth, to history and social science; one-
seventh, to natural science ; one-eighth to math-
ematics, and one-eighth to philosophy and
pedagogy.
In addition to these students in the South,
Negroes have attended Northern colleges for
[49]
The Negro Problem
many years. As early as 1826 one was grad-
uated from Bowdoin College, and from that
time till to-day nearly every year has seen else-
where, other such graduates. They have, of
course, met much color prejudice. Fifty
years ago very few colleges would admit them
at all. Even to-day no Negro has ever been
admitted to Princeton, and at some other lead-
ing institutions they are rather endured than
encouraged. Oberlin was the great pioneer in
the work of blotting out the color line in col-
leges, and has more Negro graduates by far
than any other Northern college.
The total number of Negro college grad-
uates up to 1899, (several of the graduates -of
that year not being reported), was as follows:
Negro Colleges.
White Colleges..
Before '76
.. 137
75
'75-80 .
143
22
'80-85....
'85-90....
'90-95
250
413
465
31
43
66
'95-99....
Class Unknown . .
475
57
88
64
Total
1,914
390
[50]
The Talented Tenth
Of these graduates 2,079 were men and 252
were women; 50 per cent, of Northern-born
college men come South to work among the
masses of their people, at a sacrifice which few
people realize ; nearly 90 per cent, of the South-
ern-born graduates instead of seeking that per-
sonal freedom and broader intellectual atmos-
phere which their training has led them, in
some degree, to conceive, stay and labor and
wait in the midst of their black neighbors and
relatives.
The most interesting question, and in many
respects the crucial question, to be asked con-
cerning college-bred Negroes, is : Do they earn
a living? It has been intimated more than
once that the higher training of Negroes has
resulted in sending into the world of work,
men who could find nothing to do suitable to
their talents. Now and then there comes a
rumor of a colored college man working at
menial service, etc. Fortunately, returns as to
occupations of college-bred Negroes, gathered
by the Atlanta conference, are quite full —
The Negro Problem
nearly sixty per cent, of the total number of
graduates.
This enables us to reach fairly certain con-
clusions as to the occupations of all college-
bred Negroes. Of 1,312 persons reported,
there were:
Per Cent.
Teachers,
Clergymen,
Physicians, etc.,
Students,
Lawyers,
....53.4..
....16.8..
.... 6.3..
.... 5.6..
.... 4.7..
F
In Govt. Service,
4.0. .
m
In Business,
.... 3.6..
•
Farmers and Artisans,. .
Editors, Secretaries and
Clerks,
Miscellaneous
.... 2.7..
.... 2.4..
5..
•
1
i
Over half are teachers, a sixth are preachers,
another sixth are students and professional
men ; over 6 per cent, are farmers, artisans and
merchants, and 4 per cent, are in government
service. In detail the occupations are as
follows :
Occupations of College-Bred Men.
Teachers :
Presidents and Deans, 19
Teacher of Music, 7
Professors, Principals and Teachers, 675 Total 701
[52]
The Talented Tenth
Clergymen :
Bishop, 1
Chaplains U. S. Army, 2
Missionaries, 9
Presiding Elders, 12
Preachers, 197 Total 221
Physicians,
Doctors of Medicine, 76
Druggists, 4
Dentists, 3 Total 83
Students, 74
Lawyers, 62
Civil Service :
U. S. Minister Plenipotentiary, 1
U. S. Consul, 1
U. S. Deputy Collector, 1
U. S. Ganger, 1
U. S. Postmasters, 2
U. S. Clerks, 44
State Civil Service 2
City Civil Service, 1 Total 53
Business Men :
Merchants, etc., 30
Managers, ... 13
Real Estate Dealers, 4 Total 47
Farmers, 26
Clerks and Secretaries :
Secretary of National Societies, 7
Clerks, etc., 15 Total 22
Artisans, 9
Editors, 9
Miscellaneous, 5
[53]
The Negro Problem
These figures illustrate vividly the function
of the college-bred Negro. He is, as he ought
to be, the group leader, the man who sets the
ideals of the community where he lives, directs^
its thoughts and heads its social movements.
It need hardly be argued that the Negro people
need social leadership more than most groups ;
that they have no traditions to fall back upon,
no long established customs, no strong family
ties, no well defined social classes. All these
things must be slowly and painfully evolved.
The preacher was, even before the war, the
group leader of the Negroes, and the church
their greatest social institution. Naturally
this preacher was ignorant and often immoral,
and the problem of replacing the older type by
better educated men has been a difficult one.
Both by direct work and by direct influence on
other preachers, and on congregations, the col-
lege-bred preacher has an opportunity for re-
formatory work and moral inspiration, the
value of which cannot be overestimated.
It has, however, been in the furnishing of
teachers that the Negro college has found its
[54]
The Talented Tenth
peculiar function. Few persons realize ho\v
vast a work, how mighty a revolution has been
thus accomplished. To furnish five millions
and more of ignorant people with teachers of
their own race and blood, in one generation,
was not only a very difficult undertaking, but
a very important one, in that, it placed before
the eyes of almost every Negro child an attain-
able ideal. It brought the masses of the blacks
in contact with modern civilization, made black
men the leaders of their communities and
trainers of the new generation. In this work
college-bred Negroes were first teachers, and
then teachers of teachers. And here it is thar
the broad culture of college work has been of
peculiar value. Knowledge of life and its
wider meaning, has been the point of the
Negro's deepest ignorance, and the sending
out of teachers whose training has not been
simply for bread winning, but also for human
culture, has been of inestimable value in the
training of these men.
In earlier years the two occupations of
preacher and teacher were practically the, only
[55]
The Negro Problem
ones open to the black college graduate. Of
later years a larger diversity of life among his
people, has opened new avenues of employ-
ment. Nor have these college men been pau-
pers and spendthrifts; 557 college-bred
Negroes owned in 1899, $1,342,862.50 worth
of real estate, (assessed value) or $2,411 per
family. The real value of the total accumu-
lations of the whole group is perhaps about
$10,000,000, or $5,000 a piece. Pitiful, is it
not, beside the fortunes of oil kings and steel
trusts, but after all is the fortune of the mil-
lionaire the only stamp of true and successful
living? Alas! it is, with many, and there's
the rub.
The problem of training the Negro is to-day
immensely complicated by the fact that the
whole question of the efficiency and appro-
priateness of our present systems of education,
for any kind of child, is a matter of active de-
bate, in which final settlement seems still afar
off. Consequently it often happens that per-
[56]
The Talented Tenth
sons arguing for or against certain systems of
education for Negroes, have these contro-
versies in mind and miss the real question at
issue. The main question, so far as the South-
ern Negro is concerned, is: What under the
present circumstance, must a system of educa-
tion do in order to raise the Negro as quickly
as possible in the scale of civilization? The
answer to this question seems to me clear: It
must strengthen the Negro's character, increase
his knowledge and teach him to earn a living.
Now it goes without saying, that it is hard to
do all these things simultaneously or suddenly,
and that at the same time it will not do to give
all the attention to one and neglect the others ;
we could give black boys trades, but that alone
will not civilize a race of ex-slaves; we might
simply increase their knowledge of the world,
but this would not necessarily make them wish
to use this knowledge honestly; we might seek
to strengthen character and purpose, but to
what end if this people have nothing to eat QH^^
to wear? A system of education is not one /
[57]
The Negro Problem
thing, nor does it have a single definite object,
nor is it a mere matter of schools. Education
is that whole system of human training within
and without the school house walls, which
molds and develops men. If then we start out
to train an ignorant and unskilled people with
a heritage of bad habits, our system of training
must set before itself two great aims — the one
dealing with knowledge and character, the
other part seeking to give the child the tech-
nical knowledge necessary for him to earn a
living under the present circumstances. These
objects are accomplished in part by the open-
ing of the common schools on the one, and of
the industrial schools on the other. But only
in part, for there must also be trained those
who are to teach these schools — men and wo-
men of knowledge and culture and technical
skill who understand modern civilization, and
have the training and aptitude to impart it to
the children under them. There must be
teachers, and teachers of teachers, and to at-
tempt to establish any sort of a system of com-
[58]
The Talented Tenth
mon and industrial school training, without
first (and I say first advisedly) without first
providing for the higher training of the very
best teachers, is simply throwing your money
to the winds. School houses do not teach
themselves — piles of brick and mortar and ma-
chinery do not send out men. It is the trained,
living human soul, cultivated and strengthened
by long study and thought, that breathes the
real breath of life into boys and girls and makes
them human, whether they be black or white,
Greek, Russian or American. Nothing, in
these latter days, has so dampened the faith of
thinking Negroes in recent educational move-
ments, as the fact that such movements have
been accompanied by ridicule and denounce-
ment and decrying of those very institutions of
higher training which made the Negro public
school possible, and make Negro industrial
schools thinkable. It was Fisk, Atlanta, How-
ard and Straight, those colleges born of the
faith and sacrifice of the abolitionists, that
placed in the black schools of the South the
[59]
The Negro Problem
30,000 teachers and more, which some, who
depreciate the work of these higher schools,
are using to teach their own new experiments.
If Hampton, Tuskegee and the hundred other
industrial schools prove in the future to be as
successful as they deserve to be, then their suc-
cess in training black artisans for the South,
will be due primarily to the white colleges of
the North and the black colleges of the South,
which trained the teachers who to-day conduct
these institutions. There was a time when
the American people believed pretty devoutly
that a log of wood with a boy at one end and
Mark Hopkins at the other, represented the
highest ideal of human training. But in these
eager days it would seem that we have changed
all that and think it necessary to add a couple
of saw-mills and a hammer to this outfit, and,
at a pinch, to dispense with the services of
Mark Hopkins.
I would not deny, or for a moment seem to
deny, the paramount necessity of teaching the
Negro to work, and to work steadily and skill-
[60]
The Talented Tenth
fully ; or seem to depreciate in the slightest de-
gree the important part industrial schools must
play in the accomplishment of these ends, but
I do say, and insist upon it, that it is industrial-
ism drunk with its vision of success, to imagine
that its own work can be accomplished without
providing for the training of broadly cultured
men and women to teach its own teachers, and
to teach the teachers of the public schools.
But I have already said that human educa-
tion is not simply a matter of schools; it is
much more a matter of family and group life
— the training of one's home, of one's daily
companions, of one's social class. Now the
black boy of the South moves in a black world
— a world with its own leaders, its own
thoughts, its own ideals. In this world he
gets by far the larger part of his life training,
and through the eyes of this dark world he
peers into the veiled world beyond. Who
guides and determines the education which he
receives in his world? His teachers here are
the group-leaders of the Negro people — the
[61]
The Negro Problem
physicians and clergymen, the trained fathers
and mothers, the influential and forceful men
about him of all kinds ; here it is, if at all, that
the culture of the surrounding world trickles
through and is handed on by the graduates of
the higher schools. Can such culture training
of group leaders be neglected ? Can we afford
to ignore it ? Do you think that if the leaders
of thought among Negroes are not trained and
educated thinkers, that they will have no
leaders? On the contrary a hundred half-
trained demagogues will still hold the places
they so largely occupy now, and hundreds of
vociferous busy-bodies will multiply. You
have no choice; either 3^ou must help furnish
this race from within its own ranks with
thoughtful men of trained leadership, or you
must suffer the evil consequences of a headless
misguided rabble.
Yl am an earnest advocate of manual training
and trade teaching for black boys, and for
white boys, too. I believe that next to the
founding of Negro colleges the most valuable
The Talented Tenth
addition to Negro education since the war, has
been industrial training for black boys. Never-
theless, I insist that the object of all true edu-
cation is not to make men carpenters, it is to
make carpenters men; there are two means of
making the carpenter a man, each equally im-
portant : the first is to give the group and com-
munity in which he works, liberally trained
teachers and leaders to teach him and his fam-
ity what life means; the second is to give him
sufficient intelligence and technical skill to
make him an efficient workman; the first object
demands the Negro college and college-bred
men — not a quantity of such colleges, but a
few of excellent quality ; not too many college-
bred men, but enough to leaven the lump, to
inspire the masses, to raise the Talented Tenth
to leadership; the second object demands a
good system of common schools, well-taught,
conveniently located and properly equipped.
The Sixth Atlanta Conference truly said in
1901 :
[63]
The Negro Problem
"We call the attention of the Nation to the
fact that less than one million of the three mil-
lion Negro children of school age, are at pres-
ent regularly attending school, and these at-
tend a session which lasts only a few months.
"We are to-day deliberately rearing mil-
lions of our citizens in ignorance, and at the
same time limiting the rights of citizenship by
educational qualifications. This is unjust.
Half the black youth of the land have no op-
portunities open to them for learning to read,
write and cipher. In the discussion as to the
proper training of Negro children after they
leave the public schools, we have forgotten that
they are not yet decently provided with public
schools.
''Propositions are beginning to be made in
the South to reduce the already meagre school
facilities of Negroes. We congratulate the
South on resisting, as much as it has, this pres-
sure, and on the many millions it has spent on
Negro education. But it is only fair to point
out that Negro taxes and the Negroes' share of
[64]
The Talented Tenth
the income from indirect taxes and endow-
ments have fully repaid this expenditure, so
that the Negro public school system has not in
all probability cost the white taxpayers a single
cent since the war.
"This is not fair. Negro schools should be
a public burden, since they are a public benefit.
The Negro has a right to demand good com-
mon school training at the hands of the States
and the Nation since by their fault he is not in
position to pay for this himself."
What is the chief need for the building up
of the Negro public school in the South ? The
Negro race in the South needs teachers to-day
above all else. This is the concurrent testi-
mony of all who know the situation. For the
supply of this great demand two things are
needed — institutions of higher education and
money for school houses and salaries. It is
usually assumed that a hundred or more insti-
tutions for Negro training are to-day turning
out so many teachers and college-bred men that
the race is threatened with an over-supply.
[65]
The Negro Problem
This is sheer nonsense. There are to-day less
than 3,000 living Negro college graduates in
the United States, and less than 1,000 Negroes
in college. Moreover, in the 164 schools for
Negroes, 95 per cent, of their students are
doing elementary and secondary work, work
which should be done in the public schools.
Over half the remaining 2,157 students are
taking high school studies. The mass of so-
called "normal" schools for the Negro, are
simply doing elementary common school work,
or, at most, high school work, with a little in-
struction in methods. The Negro colleges and
the post-graduate courses at other institutions
are the only agencies for the broader and more
careful training of teachers. The work of
these institutions is hampered for lack of
funds. It is getting increasingly difficult to
get funds for training teachers in the best mod-
ern methods, and yet all over the South, from
State Superintendents, county officials, city
boards and school principals comes the wail,
"We need TEACHERS !" and teachers must
[66]
The Talented Tenth
be trained. As the fairest minded of all white
Southerners, Atticus G. Haygood, once said:
"The defects of colored teachers are so great
as to ^create an urgent necessity for training
better ones. Their excellencies and their suc-
cesses are sufficient to justify the best hopes of
success in the effort, and to vindicate the judg-
ment of those who make large investments of
money and service, to give to colored students
opportunity for thoroughly preparing them-
selves for the work of teaching children of
their people."
The truth of this has been strikingly shown
in the marked improvement of white teachers
in the South. Twenty years ago the rank and
file of white public school teachers were not as
good as the Negro teachers. But they, by
scholarships and good salaries, have been en-
couraged to thorough normal and collegiate
preparation, while the Negro teachers have
been discouraged by starvation wages and the
idea that any training will do for a black
teacher. If carpenters are needed it is well
[67]
The Negro Problem
and good to train men as carpenters. But to
train men as carpenters, and then set them to
teaching is wasteful and criminal; and to train
men as teachers and then refuse them living
wages, unless they become carpenters, is rank
nonsense.
The United States Commissioner of Educa-
tion says in his report for 1900 : "For compar-
ison between the white and colored enrollment
in secondary and higher education, I have
added together the enrollment in high schools
and secondary schools, with the attendance on
colleges and universities, not being sure of the
actual grade of work done in the colleges and
universities. The work done in the secondary
schools is reported in such detail in this office,
that there can be no doubt of its grade/'
He then makes the following comparisons of
persons in every million enrolled in secondary
and higher education :
Whole Country. Negroes.
1880 4,362 1,289
1900 1 0,743 2,061
[68]
The Talented Tenth
And he concludes : "While the number in col-
ored high schools and colleges had increased
somewhat faster than the population, it had
not kept pace with the average of the whole
country, for it had fallen from 30 per cent, to
24 per cent, of the average quota. Of all col-
ored pupils, one (i) in one hundred was en-
gaged in secondary and higher work, and that
ratio has continued substantially for the past
twenty years. If the ratio of colored popula-
tion in secondary and higher education is to
be equal to the average for the whole country,
it must be increased to five times its present
average." And if this be true of the second-
ary and higher education, it is safe to say that
the Negro has not one-tenth his quota in col-
lege studies. How baseless, therefore, is the
charge of too much training ! We need Negro
teachers for the Negro common schools, and
we need first-class normal schools and col-
leges to train them. This is the work of
higher Negro education and it must be done.
[69]
The Negro Problem
Further than this, after being provided with
group leaders of civilization, and a foundation
of intelligence in the public schools, the car-
penter, in order to be a man, needs technical
skill. This calls for trade schools. Now
trade schools are not nearly such simple things
as people once thought. The original idea
was that the "Industrial" school was to furnish
education, practically free, to those willing to
work for it ; it was to "do" things — i. e. : be-
come a center of productive industry, it was
to be partially, if not wholly, self-supporting,
and it was to teach trades. Admirable as were
some of the ideas underlying this scheme, the
whole thing simply would not work in practice ;
it was found that if you were to use time and
material to teach trades thoroughly, you could
not at the same time keep the industries on a
commercial basis and make them pay. Many
schools started out to do this on a large scale
and went into virtual bankruptcy. Moreover,
it was found also that it was possible to teach
a boy a trade mechanically, without giving him
[70]
The Talented Tenth
the full educative benefit of the process, and,
vice versa, that there was a distinctive edu-
cative value in teaching a boy to use his hands
and eyes in carrying out certain physical pro-
cesses, even though he did not actually learn a
trade. It has happened, therefore, in the last
decade, that a noticeable change has come over
the industrial schools. In the first place the
idea of commercially remunerative industry in
a schooris being pushed rapidly to the back-
ground. There are still schools with shops
and farms that bring an income, and schools
that use student labor partially for the erection
of their buildings and the furnishing of equip-
ment. It is coming to be seen, however, in
the education of the Negro, as clearly as it has
been seen in the education of the youths the
world over, that it is the boy and not the ma-
terial product, that is the true object of educa-
tion. Consequently the object of the indus-
trial school came to be the thorough training
of boys regardless of the cost of the training,
so long as it was thoroughly well done.
The Negro Problem
Even at this point, however, the difficulties
were not surmounted. In the first place mod-
ern industry has taken great strides since the
war, and the teaching of trades is no longer a
simple matter. Machinery and long processes
of work have greatly changed the work of the
carpenter, the ironworker and the shoemaker.
A really efficient workman must be to-day an
intelligent man who has had good technical
training in addition to thorough common
school, and perhaps even higher training. To
meet this situation the industrial schools began
a further development ; they established distinct
Trade Schools for the thorough training of
better class artisans, and at the same time they
sought to preserve for the purposes of general
education, such of the simpler processes of ele-
mentary trade learning as were best suited
therefor. In this differentiation of the Trade
School and manual training, the best of the in-
dustrial schools simply followed the plain trend
of the present educational epoch. A prom-
inent educator tells us that, in Sweden, "In the
[72]
The Talented Tenth
beginning the economic conception was gen-
erally adopted, and everywhere manual train-
ing was looked upon as a means of preparing
the children of the common people to earn their
living. But gradually it came to be recog-
nized that manual training has a more elevated
purpose, and one, indeed, more useful in the
deeper meaning of the term. It came to be
considered as an educative process for the com-
plete moral, physical and intellectual develop-
ment of the child."
Thus, again, in the manning of trade schools
and manual training schools we are thrown /
*v
back upon the higher training as its source
chief support. There was a time when any
aged and wornout carpenter could teach in a
trade school. But not so to-day. Indeed the
demand for college-bred men by a school like
Tuskegee, ought to make Mr. Booker T.
Washington the firmest friend of higher train-
ing Here he has as helpers the son of a Ne-
gro senator, trained in Greek and the human-
ities, and graduated at Harvard; the son of a
[73]
The Negro Problem
Negro congressman and lawyer, trained in
Latin and mathematics, and graduated at Ober-
lin; he has as his wife, a woman who read Vir-
gil and Homer in the same class room with me ;
he has as college chaplain, a classical graduate
of Atlanta University; as teacher of science, a
graduate of Fisk; as teacher of history, a grad-
uate of Smith, — indeed some thirty of his
chief teachers are college graduates, and in-
stead of studying French grammars in the
midst of weeds, or buying pianos for dirty cab-
ins, they are at Mr. Washington's right hand
helping him in a noble work. And yet one of
the effects of Mr. Washington's propaganda
has been to throw doubt upon the expediency
of such training for Negroes, as these persons
have had.
Men of America, the problem is plain before
you. Here is a race transplanted through the
criminal foolishness of your fathers. Whether
you like it or not the millions are here, and here
they will remain. If you do not lift them up,
[74]
The Talented Tenth
they will pull you down. Education and work
are the levers to uplift a people. Work alone
will not do it unless inspired by the right ideals
and guided by intelligence. Education must
not simply teach work — it must teach Life.
The Talented Tenth of the Negro race must
be made leaders of thought and missionaries
of culture among their people. ( No others can
do this work and Negro colleges must train
men for it. ) The Negro race, like all other
races, is going to be saved by its exceptional
men.
[75]
The Disfranchisement of the Negro
By CHARLES W. CHESNUTT
In this paper the author presents a straightforward state-
ment of facts concerning the disfranchisement of the Negro
in the Southern States. Mr. Chesnutt, who is too well
known as a writer to need any introduction to an Ameri-
can audience, puts the case for the Negro to the American
people very plainly, and spares neither the North nor the
South.
CHARLES W. CHESNUTP.
THE DISFRANCHISEMENT OF
THE NEGRO
The right of American citizens of African
descent, commonly called Negroes, to vote upon
the same terms as other citizens of the United
States, is plainly declared and firmly fixed by
the Constitution. No such person is called
upon to present reasons why he should possess
this right : that question is foreclosed by the
Constitution. The object of the elective fran-
chise is to give representation. So long as the
Constitution retains its present form, any State
Constitution, or statute, which seeks, by jug-
gling the ballot, to deny the colored race fair
representation, is a clear violation of the funda-
mental law of the land, and a corresponding
injustice to those thus deprived of this right.
For thirty-five years this has been the law.
As long as it was measurably respected, the col-
[79]
The Negro Problem
ored people made rapid strides in education,
wealth, character and self-respect. This the
census proves, all statements to the contrary
notwithstanding A generation has grown to
manhood and womanhood under the great, in-
spiring freedom conferred by the Constitution
and protected by the right of suffrage — pro-
tected in large degree by the mere naked right,
even when its exercise was hindered or denied
by unlawful means. They have developed, in
every Southern community, good citizens, who,
if sustained and encouraged by just laws and
liberal institutions, would greatly augment their
number with the passing years, and soon wipe
out the reproach of ignorance, unthrift, low
morals and social inefficiency, thrown at them
indiscriminately and therefore unjustly, and
made the excuse for the equally undiscrimin-
ating contempt of their persons and their
rights. They have reduced their illiteracy
nearly 50 per cent. Excluded from the institu-
tions of higher learning in their own States,
their young men hold their own, and occasion-
[so]
Disfranchiscment
ally carry away honors, in the universities of the
North. They have accumulated three hundred
million dollars worth of real and personal
property. Individuals among them have ac-
quired substantial wealth, and several have at-
tained to something like national distinction in
art, letters and educational leadership. They
are numerously represented in the learned pro-
fessions. Heavily handicapped, they have
made such rapid progress that the suspicion is
justified that their advancement, rather than
any stagnation or retrogression, is the true se-
cret of the virulent Southern hostility to their
rights, which has so influenced Northern opin-
ion that it stands mute, and leaves the colored
people, upon whom the North conferred liberty,
to the tender mercies of those who have al-
ways denied their fitness for it.
It may be said, in passing, that the word
"Negro," where used in this paper, is used
solely for convenience. By the census of 1890
there were 1,000,000 colored people in the
country who were half,or more than half, white,
[81]
The Negro Problem
and logically there must be, as in fact there are,
so many who share the white blood in some de-
gree, as to justify the assertion that the race
problem in the United States concerns the wel-
fare and the status of a mixed race. Their
rights are not one whit the more sacred because
of this fact; but in an argument where injustice
is sought to be excused because of fundamental
differences of race, it is well enough to bear in
mind that the race whose rights and liberties
are endangered all over this country by disfran-
chisement at the South, are the colored people
who live in the United States to-day, and not
the low-browed, man-eating savage whom the
Southern white likes to set upon a block and
contrast with Shakespeare and Newton and
Washington and Lincoln. \
Despite and in defiance of the Federal Con-
stitution, to-day in the six Southern States of
Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, North Caro-
lina, South Carolina and Virginia, containing
an aggregate colored population of about 6,-
000,000, these have been, to all intents and pur-
[82]
Disfranchiscment
poses, denied, so far as the States can effect it,
the right to vote. This disfranchisement is ac-
complished by various methods, devised with
much transparent ingenuity, the effort being in
each instance to violate the spirit of the Federal
Constitution by disfranchising the Negro,
while seeming to respect its letter by avoiding
the mention of race or color.
These restrictions fall into three groups.
The first comprises a property qualification —
the ownership of $300 worth or more of real
or personal property (Alabama, Louisiana, Vir-
ginia and South Carolina) ; the payment of a
poll tax (Mississippi, North Carolina, Vir-
ginia) ; an educational qualification — the abil-
ity to read and write (Alabama, Louisiana,
North Carolina). Thus far, those who believe
in a restricted suffrage everywhere, could per-
haps find no reasonable fault with any one of
these qualifications, applied either separately or
together.
But the Negro has made such progress that
these restrictions alone would perhaps not de-
[83]
The Negro Problem
prive him of effective representation. Hence
the second group. This comprises an "under-
standing" clause — the applicant must be able
"to read, or understand when read to him, any
clause in the Constitution" (Mississippi), or to
read and explain, or to understand and explain
when read to him, any section of the Constitu-
tion (Virginia) ; an employment qualification
— the voter must be regularly employed in some
lawful occupation (Alabama) ; a character
qualification — the voter must be a person of
good character and who "understands the
duties and obligations of citizens under a re-
publican (!) form of government" (Alabama).
The qualifications under the first group it will
be seen, are capable of exact demonstration;
those under the second group are left to the dis-
cretion and judgment of the registering officer
—for in most instances these are all require-
ments for registration, which must precede
voting.
But the first group, by its own force, and the
second group, under imaginable conditions,
[84]
Disfranchisement
might exclude not only the Negro vote, but a
large part of the white vote. Hence, the third
group, which comprises : a military service
qualification — any man who went to war, wil-
lingly or unwillingly, in a good cause or a bad,
is entitled to register (Ala., Va.) ; a prescrip-
tive qualification, under which are included all
male persons who were entitled to vote on Jan-
uary i, 1867, at which date the Negro had not
yet been given the right to vote; a hered-
itary qualification, (the so-called "grandfather"
clause), whereby any son (Va.), or descendant
(Ala.), of a soldier, and (N. C.) the descend-
ant of any person who had the right to vote on
January i, 1867, inherits that right. If the
voter wish to take advantage of these last pro-
visions, which are in the nature of exceptions
to a general rule, he must register within a
stated time, whereupon he becomes a member
of a privileged class of permanently enrolled
voters not subject to any of the other
restrictions.
[85]
The Negro Problem
It will be seen that these restrictions are var-
iously combined in the different States, and it
is apparent that if combined to their declared
end, practically every Negro may, under color
of law, be denied the right to vote, and prac-
tically every white man accorded that
right. The effectiveness of these provisions to
exclude the Negro vote is proved by the Ala-
bama registration under the new State Consti-
tution. Out of a total, by the census of 1900, of
181,471 Negro "males of voting age," less than
3,000 are registered; in Montgomery county
alone, the seat of the State capital, where there
are 7,000 Negro males of voting age, only 47
have been allowed to register, while in several
counties not one single Negro is permitted to
exercise the franchise.
These methods of disfranchisement have
stood such tests as the United States Courts,
including the Supreme Court, have thus far
seen fit to apply, in such cases as have been be-
fore them for adjudication. These include a
case based upon the "understanding" clause of
[86]
Disfranchisement
the Mississippi Constitution, in which the Su-
preme Court held, in effect, that since there was
no ambiguity in the language employed and the
Negro was not directly named, the Court would
not go behind the wording of the Constitution
to find a meaning which discriminated against
the colored voter; and the recent case of Jack-
son vs. Giles, brought by a colored citizen of
Montgomery, Alabama, in which the Supreme
Court confesses itself impotent to provide a
remedy for what, by inference, it acknowledges
may be a "great political wrong," carefully
avoiding, however, to state that it is a wrong,
although the vital prayer of the petition was
for a decision upon this very point.
Now, what is the effect of this wholesale dis-
franchisement of colored men, upon their citi-
zenship. The value of food to the human or-
ganism is not measured by the pains of an oc-
casional surfeit, but by the effect of its entire
deprivation. Whether a class of citizens should
vote, even if not always wisely — what class
does ? — may best be determined by considering
[87]
The Negro Problem
their condition when they are without the right
to vote.
The colored people are left, in the States
where they have been disfranchised, absolutely
without representation, direct or indirect, in
any law-making body, in any court of justice,
in any branch of government — for the feeble
remnant of voters left by law is so inconsider-
able as to be without a shadow of power. Con-
stituting one-eighth of the population of the
whole country, two-fifths of the whole South-
ern people, and a majority in several States,
they are not able, because disfranchised where
most numerous, to send one representative to
the Congress, which, by the decision in the Ala-
bama case, is held by the Supreme Court to be
the only body, outside of the State itself, com-
petent to give relief from a great political
wrong. By former decisions of the same tri-
bunal, even Congress is impotent to protect
their civil rights, the Fourteenth Amendment
having long since, by the consent of the same
Court, been in many respects as completely nul-
[88]
Disfranchisemcnt
lified as the Fifteenth Amendment is now
sought to be. They have no direct representa-
tion in any Southern legislature, and no voice
in determining the choice of white men who
might be friendly to their rights. Nor are
they able to influence the election of judges or
other public officials, to whom are entrusted the
protection of their lives, their liberties and their
property. No judge is rendered careful, no
sheriff diligent, for fear that he may offend a
black constituency ; the contrary is most lament-
ably true ; day after day the catalogue of lynch-
ings and anti-Negro riots upon every imagin-
able pretext, grows longer and more appalling.
The country stands face to face with the re-
vival of slavery ; at the moment of this writing
a federal grand jury in Alabama is uncovering
a system of peonage established under cover of
law.
Under the Southern program it is sought
to exclude colored men from every grade of the
public service : not only from the higher admin-
istrative functions, to which few of them would
[89]
The Negro Problem
in any event, for a long time aspire, but from
the lowest as well. A Negro may not be a con-
stable or a policeman. He is subjected by law
to many degrading discriminations. He is re-
quired to be separated from white people on
railroads and street cars, and, by custom, de-
barred from inns and places of public enter-
tainment. His equal right to a free public edu-
cation is constantly threatened and is nowhere
equitably recognized. In Georgia, as has been
shown by Dr. DuBois, where the law provides
for a pro rata distribution of the public school
fund between the races, and where the colored
school population is 48 per cent, of the total,
the amount of the fund devoted to their schools
is only 20 per cent. In New Orleans, with an
immense colored population, many of whom
are persons of means and culture, all colored
public schools above the fifth grade have been
abolished.
The Negro is subjected to taxation without -
representation, which the forefathers of this
Republic made'the basis of a bloody revolution.
[90]
Disfranchisement
Flushed with their local success, and encour-
aged by the timidity of the Courts and the in-
difference of public opinion, the Southern
whites have carried their campaign into the na-
tional government, with an ominous degree of
success. If they shall have their way, no Ne-
gro can fill any federal office, or occupy, in the
public service, any position that is not menial.
This is not an inference, but the openly, pas-
sionately avowed sentiment of the white South.
The right to employment in the public service
is an exceedingly valuable one, for which white
men have struggled and fought. A vast army
of men are employed in the administration of
public affairs. Many avenues of employment
are closed to colored men by popular prejudice.
If their right to public employment is recog-
nized, and the way to it open through the civil
service, or the appointing power, or the suf-
frages of the people, it will prove, as it has al-
ready, a strong incentive to effort and a pow-
erful lever for advancement. Its value to the
Negro, like that of the right to vote, may be
[91]
The Negro Problem
judged by the eagerness of the whites to de-
prive him of it.
Not only is the Negro taxed without repre-
sentation in the States referred to, but he pays,
through the tariff and internal revenue, a tax
to a National government whose supreme ju-
dicial tribunal declares that it cannot, through
the executive arm, enforce its own decrees, and,
therefore, refuses to pass upon a question,
squarely before it, involving a basic right of
citizenship. | For the decision of the Supreme
Court in the Giles case, if it foreshadows the
attitude which the Court will take upon other
cases to the same general end which will soon
come before it, is scarcely less than a reaffirma-
tion of the Dred Scott decision; it certainly
amounts to this — that in spite of the Fifteenth
Amendment, colored men in the United $tates
have no political rights which the States are
bound to respect. To say this much is to say
that all privileges and immunities which Ne-
groes henceforth enjoy, must be by favor of
the whites; they are not rights. The whites
[92]
Disfranchisement
have so declared ; they proclaim that the coun-
try is theirs, that the Negro should be thankful
that he has so much, when so much more might
be withheld from him. He stands upon a low-
er footing than any alien; he has no govern-
ment to which he may look for protection.
Moreover, the white South sends to Con-
gress, on a basis including the Negro popula-
tion, a delegation nearly twice as large as it is
justly entitled to, and one which may always
safely be relied upon to oppose in Congress
every measure which seeks to protect the equal-
ity, or to enlarge the rights of colored citizens.
The grossness of this injustice is all the more
apparent since the Supreme Court, in the
Alabama case referred to, has declared the
legislative and political department of the
government to be the only power which can
right a political wrong. Under this decision
still further attacks upon the liberties of the cit-
izen may be confidently expected. Armed with
the Negro's sole weapon of defense, the white
South stands ready to smite down his rights.
[93]
The Negro Problem
The ballot was first given to the Negro to de-
fend him against this very thing. He needs it
now far more than then, and for even stronger
reasons. The 9,000,000 free colored people of
to-day have vastly more to defend than the 3,-
000,000 hapless blacks who had just emerged
from slavery. If there be those who maintain
that it was a mistake to give the Negro the bal-
lot at the time and in the manner in which it
was given, let them take to heart this reflection :
that to deprive him of it to-day, or to so restrict
it as to leave him utterly defenseless against the
present relentless attitude of the South toward
his rights, will prove to be a mistake so much
greater than the first, as to be no less than a
crime, from which not alone the Southern Ne-
gro must suffer, but for which the nation will
as surely pay the penalty as it paid for the crime
of slavery. Contempt for law is death to a re-
public, and this one has developed alarming
symptoms of the disease.
And now, having thus robbed the Negro of
every political and civil right, the white South.
[94]
Disfranchisement
in palliation of its course, makes a great show
of magnanimity in leaving him, as the sole
remnant of what he acquired through the Civil
War, a very inadequate public school education,
which, by the present program, is to be directed
mainly towards making him a better agricul-
tural laborer. Even this is put forward as a
favor, although the Negro's property is taxed
to pay for it, and his labor as well. For it is a
well settled principle of political economy, that
land and machinery of themselves produce
nothing, and that labor indirectly pays its fair
proportion of the tax upon the public's wealth.
The white South seems to stand to the Negro
at present as one, who, having been reluctantly
compelled to release another from bondage,
sees him stumbling forward and upward, neg-
lected by his friends and scarcely yet conscious
of his own strength ; seizes him, binds him, and
having bereft him of speech, of sight and of
manhood, "yokes him with the mule" and ex-
claims, with a show of virtue which ought to
deceive no one : "Behold how good a friend I
[95]
The Negro Problem
am of yours ! Have I not left you a stomach
and a pair of arms, and will I not generously
permit you to work for me with the one, that
you may thereby gain enough to fill the other ?'
A brain you do not need. We will relieve you
of any responsibility that might seem to de-
mand such an organ."
The argument of peace-loving Northern
white men and Negro opportunists that the
political power of the Negro having long ago
been suppressed by unlawful means, his right
to vote is a mere paper right, of no real value,
and therefore to be lightly yielded for the sake
of a hypothetical harmony, is fatally short-
sighted. It is precisely the attitude and essen-
tially the argument which would have surren-
dered to the South in the sixties, and would
have left this country to rot in slavery for an-
other generation. White men do not thus
argue concerning their own rights. They
know too well the value of ideals. Southern
white men see too clearly the latent power of
these unexercised rights. If the political pow-
[96]
Disfranchisement
er of the Negro was a nullity because of his ig-
norance and lack of leadership, why were they
not content to leave it so, with the pleasing as-
surance that if it ever became effective, it would
be because the Negroes had grown fit for its
exercise? On the. contrary, they have not
rested until the possibility of its revival was ap-
parently headed off by new State Constitutions.
Nor are they satisfied with this. There is no
doubt that an effort will be made to secure the
repeal of the Fifteenth Amendment, and thus
forestall the development of the wealthy and
educated Negro, whom the South seems to an-
ticipate as a greater menace than the ignorant
ex-slave. However improbable this repeal may
seem, it is not a subject to be lightly dismissed;
for it is within the power of the white people of
the nation to do whatever they wish in the
premises — they did it once; they can do it
again. The Negro and his friends should see
to it that the white majority shall never wish
to do anything to his hurt. There still stands,
before the Negro-hating whites of the South,
[97]
The Negro Problem
the specter of a Supreme Court which will in-
terpret the Constitution to mean what it says,
and what those who enacted it meant, and
what the nation, which ratified it, understood,
and which will find power, in a nation which
goes beyond seas to administer the affairs of
distant peoples, to enforce its own fundamental
laws; the specter, too, of an aroused public
opinion which will compel Congress and the
Courts to preserve the liberties of the Repub-
lic, which are the liberties of the people. To
wilfully neglect the suffrage, to hold it lightly,
is to tamper with a sacred right ; to yield it for
anything else whatever is simply suicidal.
Dropping the element of race, disfranchisement
is no more than to say to the poor and poorly
taught, that they must relinquish the right to
defend themselves against oppression until
they shall have become rich and learned, in
competition with those already thus favored
and possessing the ballot in addition. This is
not the philosophy of history. The growth of
liberty has been the constant struggle of the
[98]
Disfranchisement
poor against the privileged classes ; and the goal
of that struggle has ever been the equality
of all men before the law. The Negro
who would yield this right, deserves to be
a slave ; he has the servile spirit. The rich
and the educated can, by virtue of their
influence, command many votes; can find
other means of protection; the poor man
has but one, he should guard it as a sacred
treasure. Long ago, by fair treatment, the
white leaders of the South might have bound
the Negro to themselves with hoops of steel.
They have not chosen to take this course, but
by assuming from the beginning an attitude
hostile to his rights, have never gained his con-
fidence, and now seek by foul means to destroy
where they have never sought by fair means to
control.
I have spoken of the effect of disfran-
chisement upon the colored race; it is to the
race as a whole, that the argument of the prob-
lem is generally directed. But the unit of so-
ciety in a republic is the individual, and not the
[99]
The Negro Problem
race, the failure to recognize this fact being the
fundamental error which has beclouded the
whole discussion. The effect of disfranchise-
ment upon the individual is scarcely less disas-
trous. I do hot speak of the moral effect of in-
justice upon those who suffer from it; I refer
rather to the practical consequences which may
be appreciated by any mind. No country is
free in which the way upward is not open for
every man to try, and for every properly qual-
ified man to attain whatever of good the com-
munity life may offer. Such a condition does
not exist, at the South, even in theory, for any
man of color. In no career can such a man
compete with white men upon equal terms. He
must not only meet the prejudice of the indi-
vidual, not only the united prejudice of the
white community; but lest some one should
wish to treat him fairly, he is met at every turn
with some legal prohibition which says, "Thou
shalt not," or "Thus far shalt thou go and no
farther." But the Negro race is viable; it
adapts itself readily to circumstances; and be-
[100]
Disfranchisernent
ing thus adaptable, there is always the tempta-
tion to
"Crook the pregnant hinges of the knee,
Where thrift may follow fawning."
He who can most skilfully balance himself
upon the advancing or receding wave of white
opinion concerning his race, is surest of such
measure of prosperity as is permitted to men
of dark skins. There are Negro teachers in
the South — the privilege of teaching in their
own schools is the one respectable branch of
the public service still left open to them — who,
for a grudging appropriation from a Southern
legislature, will decry their own race, approve
their own degradation, and laud their oppres-
sors. Deprived of the right to vote, and, there-
fore, of any power to demand what is their
due, they feel impelled to buy the tolerance of
the whites at any sacrifice. If to live is the first
duty of man, as perhaps it is the first instinct,
then those who thus stoop to conquer may be
right. But is it needful to stoop so low, and
[101]
The Negro Problem
if so, where lies the ultimate responsibility for
this abasement?
I shall say nothing about the moral effect of
disfranchisement upon the white people, or
upon the State itself. What slavery made of
the Southern whites is a matter of history.
The abolition of slavery gave the South an op-
portunity to emerge from barbarism. Present
conditions indicate that the spirit which dom-
inated slavery still curses the fair section over
which that institution spread its blight.
And now, is the situation remediless? If
not so, where lies the remedy? First let us
take up those remedies suggested by the men
who approve of disfranchisement, though they
may sometimes deplore the method, or regret
the necessity.
Time, we are told, heals all diseases, rights
all wrongs, and is the only cure for this
one. It is a cowardly argument. These
people are entitled to their rights to-day, while
they are yet alive to enjoy them ; and it is poor
statesmanship and worse morals to nurse a
[102]
Disfranchiscment
present evil and thrust it forward upon a future
generation for correction. The nation can no
more honestly do this than it could thrust back
upon a past generation the responsibility for
slavery. It had to meet that responsibility; it
ought to meet this one.
[^Education has been put forward as the great
corrective — preferably industrial education. J
The intellect of the whites is to be educated to
the point where they will so appreciate the
blessings of liberty and equality, as of their
own motion to enlarge and defend the Negro's
rights. The Negroes, on the other hand, are
to be so trained as to make them, not equal
with the whites in any way — God save the
mark! this would be unthinkable! — but so use-
ful to the community that the whites will pro-
tect them rather than to lose their valuable ser-
vices. Some few enthusiasts go so far as to
maintain that by virtue of education the Negro
will, in time, become strong enough to protect
himself against any aggression of the whites;
this, it may be said, is a strictly Northern view.
[103]
The Negro Problem
It is not quite clearly apparent how educa-
tion alone, in the ordinary meaning of the
Avord, is to solve, in any appreciable time, the
problem of the relations of Southern white and
black people- The need of education of all
kinds for both races is wofully apparent. But
men and nations have been free without being
learned, and there have been educated slaves.
Liberty has been known to languish where cul-
ture had reached a very high development.
Nations do not first become rich and learned
and then free, but the lesson of history has
been that they first become free and then
rich and learned, and oftentimes fall back into
slavery again because of too great wealth, and
the resulting luxury and carelessness of civic
virtues. The process of education has been
going on rapidly in the Southern States since
the Civil War, and yet, if we take superficial
indications, the rights of the Negroes are at a
lower ebb than at any time during the thirty-
five years of their freedom, and the race preju-
dice more intense and uncompromising. It is
[104]
Disfranchisement
not apparent that educated Southerners are less
rancorous than others in their speech concern-
ing the Negro, or less hostile in their attitude
toward his rights. It is their voice alone that
we have heard in this discussion ; and if, as they
state, they are liberal in their views as com-
pared with the more ignorant whites, then God
save the Negro !
I was told, in so many words, two years ago,
by the Superintendent of Public Schools of a
Southern city that "there was no place in the
modern world for the Negro, except under the
ground." If gentlemen holding such opinions
are to instruct the white youth of the South,
would it be at all surprising if these, later on,
should devote a portion of their leisure to the
improvement of civilization by putting under
the ground as many of this superfluous race as
possible ?
The sole excuse made in the South for the
prevalent injustice to the Negro is the differ-
ence in race, and the inequalities and antipa-
thies resulting therefrom. It has nowhere
The Negro Problem
been declared as a part of the Southern pro-
.gram that the Negro, when educated, is to be
.given a fair representation in government or an
•equal opportunity in life; the contrary has
been strenuously asserted; education can never
make of him anything but a Negro, and,
therefore, essentially inferior, and not to be
safely trusted with any degree of power.
A system of education which would tend
to soften the asperities and lessen the in-
equalities between the races would be of
inestimable value. An education which by
a rigid separation of the races from the kin-
dergarten to the university, fosters this racial
antipathy, and is directed toward emphasizing
the superiority of one class and the inferiority
of another, might easily have disastrous, rather
than beneficial results. It would render the op-
pressing class more powerful to injure, the op-
pressed quicker to perceive and keener to re-
sent the injury, without proportionate power
of defense. The same assimilative education
which is given at the North to all children alike,
[106]
Disfranchisement
whereby native^and foreign, black and white,
are taught side by side in every grade of in-
struction, and are compelled by the exigencies
of discipline to keep their prejudices in abey-
ance, and are given the opportunity to learn
and appreciate one another's good qualities,
and to establish friendly relations which may
exist throughout life, is absent from the South-
ern system of education, both of the past and
as proposed for the future. Education is in a
broad sense a remedy for all social ills ; but the
disease we have to deal with now is not only
constitutional but acute. A wise physician
does not simply give a tonic for a dis-
eased limb, or a high fever; the patient might
be dead before the constitutional remedy could
become effective. The evils of slavery, its in-
jury to whites and blacks, and to the body po-
litic, was clearly perceived and acknowledged
by the educated leaders of the South as far
back as the Revolutionary War and the Con-
stitutional Convention, and yet they made no
effort to abolish it. Their remedy was the
The Negro Problem
same — time, education, social and economic de-
velopment;— and yet a bloody war was neces-
sary to destroy slavery and put its spirit tem-
porarily to sleep. When the South and its
friends are ready to propose a system of edu-
cation which will recognize and teach the equal-
ity of all men before the law, the potency of
education alone to settle the race problem will
be more clearly apparent.
At present even good Northern men, who
wish to educate the Negroes, feel impelled to
buy this privilege from the none too eager
white South, by conceding away the civil and
political rights of those whom they would ben-
efit. They have, indeed, gone farther than the
Southerners themselves in approving the dis-
franchisement of the colored race. Most
Southern men, now that they have carried their
point and disfranchised the Negro, are willing
to admit, in the language of a recent number of
the Charleston Evening Post, that "the attitude
of the Southern white man toward the Negro
is incompatible with the fundamental ideas of
[to83
Disfranchisement
the republic/' It remained for our Clevelands
and Abbotts and Parkhursts to assure them
that their unlawful course was right and justi-
fiable, and for the most distinguished Negro
leader to declare that "every revised Constitu-
tion throughout the Southern States has put a
premium upon intelligence, ownership of prop-
erty, thrift and character." So does every pen-
itentiary sentence put a premium upon good
conduct; but it is poor consolation to the one
unjustly condemned, to be told that he may
shorten his sentence somewhat by good be-
havior. Dr. Booker T. Washington, whose
language is quoted above, has, by his eminent
services in the cause of education, won deserved
renown. If he has seemed, at times, to those
jealous of the best things for their race, to de-
cry the higher education, it can easily be borne
in mind that his career is bound up in the suc-
cess of an industrial school; hence any undue
stress which he may put upon that branch of
education may safely be ascribed to the natural
zeal of the promoter, without detracting in any
[109]
The Negro Problem
degree from the essential value of his teach-
ings in favor of manual training, thrift and
character-building. But Mr. Washington's
prominence as an educational leader, among a
race whose prominent leaders are so few, has
at times forced him, perhaps reluctantly, to ex-
press himself in regard to the political condi-
tion of his people, and here his utterances have
not always been so wise nor so happy. He
has declared himself in favor of a restricted
suffrage, which at present means, for his own
people, nothing less than complete loss of rep-
resentation— indeed it is only in that connec-
tion that the question has been seriously moot-
ed; and he has advised them to go slow in
seeking to enforce their civil and political
rights, which, in effect, means silent submis-
sion to injustice. Southern white men may
applaud this advice as wise, because it fits in
with their purposes; but Senator McEnery of
Louisiana, in a recent article in the Independ-
ent, voices the Southern white opinion of such
acquiescence when he says : "What other race
[TIO]
Disfranchiscmcnt
would have submitted so many years to slavery
without complaint? What other race would
have submitted so quietly to disfranchisementf
These facts stamp his (the Negro's) inferiority
to the white race." The time to philosophize
about the good there is in evil, is not while its
correction is still possible, but, if at all, after all
hope of correction is past- Until then it calls
for nothing but rigorous condemnation. To
try to read any good thing into these fraudu-
lent Southern constitutions, or to accept them
as an accomplished fact, is to condone a crime
against one's race. Those who commit crimev
should bear the odium. It is not a pleasing
spectacle to see the robbed applaud the robber.
Silence were better.
It has become fashionable to question the
wisdom of the Fifteenth Amendment. I be-
lieve it to have been an act of the highest
statesmanship, based upon the fundamental
idea of this Republic, entirely justified by con-
ditions ; experimental in its nature, perhaps, as
every new thing must be, but just in principle;
tin]
The Negro Problem
a choice between methods, of which it seemed
to the great statesmen of that epoch the wisest
and the best, and essentially the most just,
bearing in mind the interests of the freedmen
and the Nation, as well as the feelings of the
Southern whites ; never fairly tried, and there-
fore, not yet to be justly condemned. Not one
of those who condemn it, has been able, even in
the light of subsequent events, to suggest a bet-
ter method by which the liberty and civil rights
of the freedmen and their descendants could
have been protected. Its abandonment, as I
have shown, leaves this liberty and these rights
frankly without any guaranteed protection.
All the education which philanthropy or the
State could offer as a substitute for equality
of rights, would be a poor exchange; there
is no defensible reason why they should not go
hand in hand, each encouraging and strength-
ening the other. The education which one can
demand as a right is likely to do more good
than the education for which one must sue as a
favor.
[112]
Disfranchisement
The chief argument against Negro suffrage,
the insistently proclaimed argument, worn
threadbare in Congress, on the platform, in the
pulpit, in the press, in poetry, in fiction, in im-
passioned rhetoric, is the reconstruction period.
And yet the evils of that period were due far
more to the venality and indifference of white
men than to the incapacity of black voters.
The revised Southern Constitutions adopted
under reconstruction reveal a higher statesman-
ship than any which preceded or have followed
them, and prove that the freed voters could as
easily have been led into the paths of civic
righteousness as into those of misgovernment.
Certain it is that under reconstruction the civil
and political rights of all men were more secure
in those States than they have ever been since.
We will hear less of the evils of reconstruction,
now that the bugaboo has served its purpose by
disfranchising the Negro, it will be laid aside
for a time while the nation discusses the polit-
ical corruption of great cities; the scandalous
conditions in Rhode Island ; the evils attending
The Negro Problem
reconstruction in the Philippines, and the scan-
dals in the postoffice department — for none of
which, by the way, is the Negro charged with
any responsibility, and for none of which is the
restriction of the suffrage a remedy seriously
proposed. Rhode Island is indeed the only
Northern State which has a property qualifica-
tion for the franchise!
There are three tribunals to which the col-
ored people may justly appeal for the protection
of their rights : the United States Courts, Con-
gress and public opinion. At present all three
seem mainly indifferent to any question of hu-
man rights under the Constitution. Indeed,
Congress and the Courts merely follow public
opinion, seldom lead it. Congress never en-
acts a measure which is believed to oppose pub-
lic opinion; — your Congressman keeps his ear
to the ground. The high, serene atmosphere
of the Courts is not impervious to its voice;
they rarely enforce a law contrary to public
opinion, even the Supreme Court being able, as
Charles Sumner once put it, to find a reason for
[114]
Disfranchisement
every decision it may wish to render ; or, as ex-
perience has shown, a method to evade any
question which it cannot decently decide in ac-
cordance with public opinion. The art of
straddling is not confined to the political arena.
The Southern situation has been well described
by a colored editor in Richmond: "When we
seek relief at the hands of Congress, we are in-
formed that our plea involves a legal question,
and we are referred to the Courts. When we
appeal to the Courts, we are gravely told that
the question is a political one, and that we must
go to Congress. When Congress enacts rem-
edial legislation, our enemies take it to the Su-
preme Court, which promptly declares it un-
constitutional." The Negro might chase his
rights round and round this circle until the end
of time, without finding any relief.
Yet the Constitution is clear and unequivocal
in its terms, and no Supreme Court can indefi-
nitely continue to construe it as meaning any-
thing but what it says. This Court should be
bombarded with suits until it makes some deft-
The Negro Problem
nite pronouncement, one way or the other, on
the broad question of the constitutionality of
the disfranchising Constitutions of the South-
ern States. The Negro and his friends will
then have a clean-cut issue to take to the forum
of public opinion, and a distinct ground upon
which to demand legislation for the enforce-
ment of the Federal Constitution. The case
from Alabama was carried to the Supreme
Court expressly to determine the constitution-
ality of the Alabama Constitution. The Court
declared itself without jurisdiction, and in the
same breath went into the merits of the case
far enough to deny relief, without passing upon
the real issue. Had it said, as it might with
absolute justice and perfect propriety, that the
Alabama Constitution is a bold and impudent
violation of the Fifteenth Amendment, the pur-
pose of the lawsuit would have been accom-
plished and a righteous cause vastly strength-
ened.
But public opinion cannot remain permanent-
ly indifferent to so vital a question. The agi-
[116]
Disfranchisement
tation is already on. It is at present largely
academic, but is slowly and resistlessly, forcing
itself into politics, which is the medium through
which republics settle such questions. It can-
not much longer be contemptuously or indiffer-
ently elbowed aside. The South itself seems
bent upon forcing the question to an issue, as,
by its arrogant assumptions, it brought on the
Civil War. From that section, too, there come
now and then, side by side with tales of South-
ern outrage, excusing voices, which at the same
time are accusing voices ; which admit that the
white South is dealing with the Negro unjustly
and unwisely; that the Golden Rule has been
forgotten ; that the interests of white men alone
have been taken into account, and that their
true interests as well are being sacrificed.
There is a silent white South, uneasy in con-
science, darkened in counsel, groping for the
light, and willing to do the right. They are as
yet a feeble folk, their voices scarcely audible
above the clamor of the mob. May their con-
victions ripen into wisdom, and may their num-
The Negro Problem
hers and their courage increase ! If the class of
Southern white men of whom Judge Jones of
Alabama, is so noble a representative, are sup-
ported and encouraged by a righteous public
opinion at the North, they may, in time, become
the dominant white South, and we may then
look for wisdom and justice in the place where,
so far as the Negro is concerned, they now seem
well-nigh strangers. But even these gentle-
men will do well to bear in mind that so long as
they discriminate in any way against the Ne-
gro's equality of right, so long do they set class
against class and open the door to every sort of
discrimination. There can be no middle
ground between justice and injustice, between
the citizen and the serf.
It is not likely that the North, upon the sober
second thought, will permit the dearly-bought
results of the Civil War to be nullified by any
change in the Constitution. As long as the
Fifteenth Amendment stands, the rights of col-
ored citizens are ultimately secure. There
were would-be despots in England after the
[118]
Disfranchisement
granting of Magna Charta; but it out-
lived them all, and the liberties of the English
people are secure. There was slavery in this
land after the Declaration of Independence, yet
the faces of those who love liberty have ever
turned to that immortal document. So will
the Constitution and its principles outlive the
prejudices which would seek to overthrow it.
What colored men of the South can do to
secure their citizenship to-day, or in the imme-
diate future, is not very clear. Their utter-
ances on political questions, unless they be to
concede away the political rights of their race,
or to soothe the consciences of white men by
suggesting that the problem is insoluble except
by some slow remedial process which will be-
come effectual only in the distant future, are
received with scant respect — could scarcely, in-
deed, be otherwise received, without a voting
constituency to back them up, — and must be
cautiously made, lest they meet an actively hos-
tile reception. But there are many colored
men at the North, where their civil and polit-
The Negro Problem
ical rights in the main are respected. There
every honest man has a vote, which he may
freely cast, and which is reasonably sure to be
fairly counted. When this race develops a suf-
ficient power of combination, under adequate
leadership, — and there are signs already that
this time is near at hand, — the Northern vote
can be wielded irresistibly for the defense of
the rights of their Southern brethren.
In the meantime the Northern colored
men have the right of free speech, and
they should never cease to demand their
rights, to clamor for them, to guard them
jealously, and insistently to invoke law and
public sentiment to maintain them. He who
would be free must learn to protect his free-
dom. Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.
He who would be respected must respect him-
self. The best friend of the Negro is he who
would rather see, within the borders of this re-
public one million free citizens of that race,
equal before the law, than ten million cringing
serfs existing by a contemptuous sufferance.
A race that is willing to survive upon any other
terms is scarcely worthy of consideration.
[120]
Disfranchiscment
The direct remedy for the disfranchisement
of the Negro lies througfrpolitical action^ One
scarcely sees the philosophy of distinguishing
between a civil and a political right. J But the
Supreme Court has recognized this distinction
and has designated Congress as the power to
right a political wrong. The Fifteenth
Amendment gives Congress power to enforce
its provisions. The power would seem to be in-
herent in government itself; but anticipating
that the enforcement of the Amendment might
involve difficulty, they made the superoroga-
tory declaration. Moreover, they went further,
and passed laws by which they provided for
such enforcement. These the Supreme Court
has so far declared insufficient. It is for Con-
gress to make more la\vs. It is for colored men
and for whit£ men who arelibt content to^ee
the blood:15ought results of the Civil War nulli-
fied, to urge and direct public opinion to the
point where it will demand stringent legislation
to enforce the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amend-
ments. This demand will rest in law, in mor-
als and in true statesmanship; no difficulties
[121]
The Negro Problem
attending it could be worse than the present ig-
noble attitude of the Nation toward its own
laws and its own ideals — without courage to
enforce them, without conscience to change
them, the United States presents the spectacle
of a Nation drifting aimlessly, so far as this
vital, National problem is concerned, upon the
sea of irresolution, toward the maelstrom of
anarchy.
The right of Congress, under the Fourteenth
Amendment, to reduce Southern representa-
tion can hardly be disputed. But Congress
has a simpler and more direct method to ac-
complish the same end. It is the sole judge of
the qualifications of its own members, and the
sole judge of whether any member presenting
his credentials has met those qualifications. It
can refuse to seat any member who comes from
a district where voters have been disfranchised ;
it can judge for itself whether this has been
done, and there is no appeal from its decision.
If, when it has passed a law, any Court shall
refuse to obey its behests, it can impeach the
judges. If any president refuse to lend the ex-
ecutive arm of the government to the enforce-
[122]
Disfranchisement
ment of the law, it can impeach the president.
No such extreme measures are likely to be nec-
essary for the enforcement of the Fourteenth
and Fifteenth Amendments — and the Thir-
teenth, which is also threatened — but they are
mentioned as showing that Congress is su-
preme; and Congress proceeds, the House di-
rectly, the Senate indirectly, from the people
and is governed by public opinion. If the re-
duction of Southern representation were to
be regarded in the light of a bargain by
which the Fifteenth Amendment was sur-
rendered, then it might prove fatal to
liberty. If it be inflicted as a punishment
and a warning, to be followed by more drastic
measures if not sufficient, it would serve a use-
ful purpose. The Fifteenth Amendment de-
clares that the right to vote shall not be denied
or abridged on account of color ; and any meas-
ure adopted by Congress should look to that
end. Only as the power to injure the Negro
in Congress is reduced thereby, would a reduc-
tion of representation protect the Negro ; with-
out other measures it would still leave him in
The Negro Problem
the hands of the Southern whites, who could
safely be trusted to make him pay for their
humiliation.
Finally, there is, somewhere in the Universe
a "Power that works for righteousness," and
that leads men to do justice to one another. To
this power, working upon the hearts and con-
sciences of men, the Negro can always appeal.
He has the right upon his side, and in the end
the right will prevail. The Negro will, in time,
attain to full manhood and citizenship through-
out the United States. No better guaranty of
this is needed than a comparison of his present
with his past. Toward this he must do his
part, as lies within his power and his opportun-
ity. But it will be, after all, largely a white
man's conflict, fought out in the forum of the
public conscience. The Negro, though eager
enough when opportunity offered, had compar-
atively little to do with the abolition of slavery,
which was a vastly more formidable task than
will be the enforcement of the Fifteenth
Amendment.
The Negro and the Law
By WILFORD H. SMITH
The law and how it is dodged by enactments infringing
upon the rights guaranteed to the freedmen by constitutional
amendment. A powerful plea for justice for the Negro.
WILFORD H. SMITH,
THE NEGRO AND THE LAW
The colored people in the United States are
indebted to the beneficent provisions of the
1 3th, I4th and I5th amendments to the Con-
stitution of the United States, for the establish-
ment of their freedom and citizenship, and it
is to these mainly they must look for the main-
tenance of their liberty and the protection of
their civil rights. These amendments followed
close upon the Emancipation Proclamation is-
sued January ist, 1863, by President Lincoln,
and his call for volunteers, which was answered
by more than three hundred thousand negro
soldiers, who, during three years of military
service, helped the Union arms to victory at
Appomattox. Standing in the shadow of the
awful calamity and deep distress of the civil
war, and grateful to God for peace and victory
over the rebellion, the American people, who
The Negro Problem
upheld the Union, rose to the sublime heights
of doing justice to the former slaves, who had
grown and multiplied with the country from
the early settlement at Jamestown. It looked
like an effort to pay them back for their years
of faithfulness and unrequited toil, by not only
making them free but placing them on equal
footing with themselves in the fundamental
law. Certainly, they intended at least, that
they should have as many rights under the
Constitution as are given to white naturalized
citizens who come to this country from all the
nations of Europe.
The 1 3th amendment provides that neither
slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a
punishment for crime, whereof the party shall
have been duly convicted, shall exist in the
United States or any place subject to their jur-
isdiction. ^
The 1 4th amendment provides in section one,
that all persons born or naturalized in the
United States and subject to the jurisdiction
thereof, are citizens of the United States, and
Negro and the Law
of the State wherein they reside. No State
shall make or enforce any law which shall
abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens
of the United States, nor shall any State de-
prive any person of life, liberty or property
without due process of law, nor deny to any
person within its jurisdiction the equal protect-
ion of the law.
The 1 5th amendment provides that the right
of citizens of the United States to vote shall
not be denied or abridged by the United States,
or by any State on account of race, color, or
previous condition of servitude.
Chief Justice Waite, in the case of the United
States vs. Cruikshank, Q2nd U. S. 542, said : —
"The I4th amendment prohibits a State from
denying to any person within its jurisdiction
the equal protection of the law. The equality
of the rights of citizens is a principle of repub-
licanism. Every Republican government is in
duty bound to protect all its citizens in the en-
joyment of this principle if within its power."
The Negro Problem
The same Chief Justice, in the case of the
United States vs. Reese, 92nd U. S. 214, said:
"The 1 5th amendment does not confer the
right of suffrage upon anyone. It prevents
the States or the United States from giving
preference in this particular to one citizen of
the United States over another, on account of
race, color or previous condition of servitude.
Before its adoption this could be done. It was
as much within the power of a State to exclude
citizens of the United States from voting on
account of race and color, as it was on account
of age, property or education. Now it is not."
Notwithstanding the manifest meaning of
equality of citizenship contained in the consti-
tutional amendments, it was found necessary
to reinforce them by a civil rights law, enacted
by the Congress of the United States, March
ist, 1875, entitled, "An Act To Protect All
Citizens In Their Civil and Legal Rights. ""
Its preamble and first section are as follows : —
Preamble : "Whereas, it is essential to just gov-
ernment we recognize the equality of all men
Negro and the Law
before the law, and hold that it is the duty of
government in its dealings with the people to
mete out equal and exact justice to all, of what-
ever nativity, race, color or persuasion, relig-
ious or political, and it being the appropriate
object of legislation to enact great fundamental
principles into law, therefore,
"Be it enacted that all persons within the
jurisdiction of the United States shall be en-
titled to the full and equal enjoyment of the ac-
commodations, advantages, facilities and priv-
ileges of inns, public conveyances on land or
water, theatres and other places of public
amusement, subject only to the conditions and
limitations established by law, and applicable
alike to citizens of every race and color, regard-
less to any previous condition of servitude/'
The Supreme Court of the United States has
held this salutary law unconstitutional and void
as applied to the States, but binding in the Dis-
trict of Columbia, and the Territories over
which the government of the United States has
control. — Civil Rights cases 109 U. S. 63.
The Negro Problem
Since the Supreme Court's ruling, many North-
ern and Western States have enacted similar
civil rights laws. Equality of citizenship in the
United States suffered a severe blow when the
civil rights bill was struck down by the Su-
preme Court. The colored people looked upon
the decision as unsound, and prompted by race
prejudice. It was clear that the amendments
to the Constitution were adopted to secure not
only their freedom, but their equal civil rights,
and by ratifying the amendments the several
States conceded to the Federal government the
power and authority of maintaining not alone
their freedom, but their equal civil rights in the
United States as well.
The Federal Supreme Court put a narrow
interpretation on the Constitution, rather than
a liberal one in favor of equal rights ; in marked
contrast to a recent decision of the Appellate
Division of the Supreme Court of New York
in a civil rights case arising under the statute
of New York, Burks vs. Bosso, 81 N. Y. Supp,
384. The New York Supreme Court held this
Negro and the Law
language: "The liberation of the slaves, and
the suppression of the rebellion, was supple-
mented by the amendments to the national Con-
stitution according to the colored people their
civil rights and investing them with citizenship.
The amendments indicated a clear purpose to
secure equal rights to the black people with the
white race. The legislative intent must con-
trol, and that may be gathered from circum-
stances inducing the act. Where that intent
has been unvaryingly manifested in one direct-
ion, and that in the prohibition of any discrim-
ination against a large class of citizens, the
courts should not hesitate to keep apace with
legislative purpose. We must remember that
the slightest trace of African blood places a
man under the ban of belonging to that race.
However respectable and whatever he may be,
he is ostracized socially, and when the policy of
the law is against extending the prohibition of
his civil rights, a liberal, rather than a narrow
interpretation should be given to enactments
evidencing the intent to eliminate race dis-
[133]
The Negro Problem
crimination, as far as that can be accomplished
by legislative intervention."
The statutory enactments and recent Consti-
tutions of most of the former slave-holding
States, show that they have never looked with
favor upon the amendments to the national
Constitution. They rather regard them as war
measures designed by the North to humiliate
and punish the people of those States lately in
rebellion. While in the main they accept the
1 3th amendment and concede that the negro
should have personal freedom, they have never
been altogether in harmony with the spirit and
purposes of the I4th and I5th amendments.
There seems to be a distinct and positive fear
on the part of the South that if the negro is
given a man's chance, and is accorded equal
civil rights with white men on the juries, on
common carriers, and in public places, that it
will in some way lead to his social equality.
This fallacious argument is persisted in, not-
withstanding the well-known fact, that al-
though the Jews are the leaders in the wealth
[134]
Negro and the Law
and commerce of the South, their civil equality
has never, except in rare instances, led to any
social intermingling with the Southern whites.
Holding these views the Southern people in
1875, found means to overcome the Republican
majorities in all the re-constructed States, and
practically drove the negroes out of the law-
making bodies of all those States. So that,
now in all the Southern States, so far as can be
ascertained, there is not one negro sitting as a
representative in any of the law-making bodies.
The next step was to deny them representation
on the grand and petit juries in the State
courts, through Jury Commissioners, who ex-
cluded them from the panels.
To be taxed without representation is a ser-
ious injustice in a republic whose foundations
are laid upon the principle of "no taxation
without representation." But serious as this
phase of the case must appear, infinitely more
serious is the case when we consider the fact
that they are likewise excluded from the grand
and petit juries in all the State courts, with the
[1351
The Negro Problem
fewest and rarest exceptions. The courts sit
in judgment upon their lives and liberties, and
dispose of their dearest earthly possessions.
They are not entitled to life, liberty or property
if the courts should decide they are not, and yet
in this all-important tribunal they are denied
all voice, except as parties and witnesses, and
here and there a negro lawyer is permitted to
appear. One vote on the grand jury might
prevent an indictment, and save disgrace and
the risk of public trial; while one vote on the
petit jury might save a life or a term of im-
prisonment, for an innocent person pursued
and persecuted by powerful enemies.
With no voice in the making of the laws,
which they are bound to obey, nor in their ad-
ministration by the courts, thus tied and help-
less, the negroes were proscribed by a system
of legal enactments intended to wholly nullify
the letter and spirit of the war amendments to
the national organic law. This crusade was
begun by enacting a system of Jim-Crow car
laws in all the Southern States, so that now the
[136]
Negro and the Law
Jim-Crow cars run from the Gulf of Mexico
into the national capital. They are called,
'Separate Car Laws/' providing for separate
but equal accommodations for whites and ne-
groes. Though fair on their face, they are
everywhere known to discriminate against the
colored people in their administration, and were
intended to humiliate and degrade them.
Setting apart separate places for negroes on
public carriers, is just as repugnant to the spirit
and intent of the national Constitution, as
would be a law compelling all Jews or all
Roman Catholics to occupy compartments
specially set apart for them on account of their
religion. If these statutes were not especially
aimed at the negro, an arrangement of differ-
ent fares, such as first, second and third classes,
would have been far more just and preferable,
and would have enabled the refined and exclus-
ive of both races to avoid the presence of the
coarse and vicious, by selecting the more ex-
pensive fare. Still these laws have been up-
held by the Federal Supreme Court, and pro-
[137]
The Negro Problem
nounced not in conflict with the amendments
to the Constitution of the United States.
City ordinances providing for separate street
cars for white and colored passengers, are in
force in Atlanta, New Orleans, and in nearly
all the cities of the South. In all the principal
cities of Alabama, a certain portion of the
street cars is set apart and marked for negroes.
The conductors are clothed with the authority
of determining to what race the passenger be-
longs, and may arrest persons refusing to obey
his orders. It is often a very difficult task to
determine to what race some passengers belong,
there being so many dark- white persons that
might be mistaken for negroes, and persons
known as negroes who are as fair as any white
person.
In the State of Georgia, a negro cannot pur-
chase a berth in a sleeping car, under any cir-
cumstances, no matter where his destination,
owing to the following statute enacted Decem-
ber 2Oth, 1899 : "Sleeping car companies, and
all railroads operating sleeping cars in this
Negro and the Law
State, shall separate the white and colored
races, and shall not permit them to occupy the
same compartment; provided, that nothing in
this act shall be construed to compel sleeping
car companies or railroads operating sleeping
cars, to carry persons of color in sleeping or
parlor cars; provided also, that this act shall
not apply to colored nurses or servants travel-
ling with their employers." The violation of
this statute is a misdemeanor.
Article 45, section 639 of the statutes of
Georgia, 1895, makes it a misdemeanor to keep
or confine white and colored convicts together,
or to chain them together going to and from
work. There is also a statute in Georgia re-
quiring that a separate tax list be kept in every
county, of the property of white and colored
persons. Both races generally approve the
laws prohibiting inter-marriages between
white and colored persons, which seem to be
uniform throughout the Southern States.
Florida seems to have gone a step further
than the rest, and by sections 2612 and 2613,
[139]
The Negro Problem
Revised Statutes, 1892, it is made a misde-
meanor for a white man and a colored woman,
and vice versa, to sleep under the same roof at
night, occupying the same room. Florida is
entitled to credit, however, for a statute making
marriages between white and colored persons
prior to 1866, where they continue to live to-
gether, valid and binding to all intents and
purposes.
In addition to this forced separation of the
races by law, "from the cradle to the grave,"
there is yet a sadder and more deplorable sepa-
ration, in the almost universal disposition to
leave the negroes wholly and severely to them-
selves in their home life and religious life, by
the white Christian people of the South, dis-
tinctly manifesting no concern in their moral
and religious development.
In Georgia and the Carolinas, and all the
Gulf States (except Texas, where the farm la-
bor is mostly white) the negroes on the farms
are held by a system of laws which prevents
them from leaving the plantations, and enables
[140]
Negro and the Law
the landlord to punish them by fine and impris-
onment for any alleged breach of contract. In
the administration of these laws they are vir-
tually made slaves to the landlord, as long as
they are in debt, and it is wholly in the power
of the landlord to forever keep them in debt.
By section 355, of the Criminal Code of
South Carolina, 1902, it is made a misdemeanor
to violate a contract to work and labor on a
farm, subject to a fine of not less than five dol-
lars, and more than one hundred dollars, or im-
prisonment for not less than ten days, or more
than thirty. It is also made a misdemeanor to
employ any farm laborer while under contract
with another, or to persuade or entice a farm
laborer to leave his employer.
The Georgia laws are a little stronger in this
respect than the laws of the other States. By
section 121, of the Code of Georgia, 1895, it
is provided, "that if any person shall, by offer-
ing higher wages, or in any other way entice,
persuade or decoy, or attempt to entice, per-
suade or decoy any farm laborer from his em-
[141]
The Negro Problem
ployer, he shall be guilty of a misdemeanor."
Again, by act of December I7th, 1901, the
Georgia Legislature passed a law making it an
offense to rent land, or furnish land to a farm
laborer, after he has contracted with another
landlord, without first obtaining the consent of
the first landlord.
The presence of large numbers of negroes in
the towns and cities of the South and North
can be accounted for by such laws as the above,
administered by ignorant country magistrates,
in nearly all cases the pliant tools of the land-
lords.
J The boldest and most open violation of the
negro's rights under the Federal Constitution,
was the enactment of the grand-father clauses,
and understanding clauses in the new Consti-
tutions of Louisiana, Alabama, the Car-
olinas, and Virginia, which have had the
effect to deprive the great body of them of
the right to vote in those States, for no other
reason than their race and color. Although
thus depriving him of his vote, and all voice in
Negro and the Law
the State governments at the South, in all of
them his property is taxed to pay pensions to
Confederate soldiers, who fought to continue
him in slavery. The fact is, the franchise had
been practically taken from the negroes in the
South since 1876, by admitted fraudulent meth-
ods and intimidation in elections, but it was
not until late years that this nullification of the
amendments was enacted into State Consti-
tutions.
This brings me to the proposition that it is
mainly in the enforcement, or the administra-
tion of the laws, however fair and equal they
may appear on their face, that the constitutional
rights of negroes to equal protection and treat-
ment are denied, not only in the South but in
many Northern States. There are noble ex-
ceptions, however, of high-toned honorable
gentlemen on the bench as trial judges, and
Supreme Court justices, in the South, who
without regard to consequences have stood for
fairness and justice to the negro in their courts.
[143]
The Negro Problem
With the population of the South distinctly
divided into two classes, not the rich and poor,
not the educated and ignorant, not the moral
and immoral, but simply whites and blacks, all
negroes being generally regarded as inferior
and not entitled to the same rights as any white
person, it is bound to be a difficult matter to ob-
tain fair and just results, when there is any
sort of conflict between the races. The negro
realizes this, and knows that he is at an im-
mense disadvantage when he is forced to liti-
gate with a white man in civil matters, and
much more so when he is charged with a crime
by a white person.
The juries in the South almost always reject
the testimony of any number of negroes if
given in opposition to that of a white witness,,
and this is true in many instances, no matter
how unreasonable or inconsistent the testimony
of the white witness may be. Jurors in the-
South have been heard to admit that they
would be socially ostracized if they brought in
[144]
Negro and the Law
a verdict upon colored testimony alone, in op-
position to white testimony.
Perhaps it can be best explained how the ne-
gro fares in the courts of the South by giving
a few cases showing how justice is adminis-
tered to him :
A negro boy was brought to the bar for trial
before a police magistrate, in a Southern cap-
ital city, charged with assault and battery on a
white boy about the same age, but a little lar-
ger. The testimony showed that the white
boy had beat the negro on several previous oc-
casions as he passed on his way to school, and
each time the negro showed no disposition to
fight. On the morning of the charge he at-
tacked the negro and attempted to cut him with
a knife, because the negro's mother had re-
ported to the white boy's mother the previous
assaults, and asked her to chastise him. The
colored boy in trying to keep from being cut
was compelled to fight, and got the advantage
and threw the white boy down and blacked his
eyes. The magistrate on this evidence fined
The Negro Problem
the negro twenty-five dollars. The mother of
the negro having once been a servant for the
magistrate, found courage to rise, and said:
"Jedge, yo I-Ioner, can I speak?" The magis-
trate replied, "Yes, go on." She said, "Well,
Jedge, my boy is ben tellin' me about dis white
boy meddlin' him on his way to school, but I
would not let my boy fight, 'cause I 'tole him
he couldn't git no jestice in law. But he had
no other way to go to school 'ceptin' gwine dat
way; and den jedge, dis white chile is bigger
an my chile and jumped on him fust with a
knife for nothin', befo' my boy tetched him.
Jedge I am a po' woman, and washes fur a
livin', and ain't got nobody to help me, and
can't raise all dat money. I think dat white
boy's mammy ought to pay half of dis fine."
By this time her voice had become stifled by
her tears. The judge turned to the mother of
the white boy and said, "Madam, are you wil-
ling to pay half of this fine?" She answered,
"Yes, Your Honor." And the judge changed
the order to a fine of $12.50 each, against both
boys.
Negro and the Law
A celebrated case in point reported in the
books is, George Maury vs. The State of Miss.,
68 Miss. 605. I reproduce the court's state-
ment of the case : — "This is an appeal from the
Circuit Court of Kemper County. Appellant
was convicted of murder and sentenced to im-
prisonment for life. He appears in this court
without counsel. The facts are briefly these:
One, Nicholson, a white man, accompanied by
his little son seven years old, was driving an
ox team along a public road; he had occasion
to stop and the oxen were driven by his son;
defendant, a negro, also in an ox wagon, was
going along the road in an opposite direction,
and met Nicholson's wagon in charge of the
little boy. It was after dark, and when the
wagons met, according to the testimony of
Nicholson, the defendant insultingly demanded
of the boy to give the way, and cursed and
abused him. Nicholson, hearing the colloquy,
hurried to the scene and a fight ensued between
him and Maury, in which the latter got the ad-
vantage, inflicting severe blows upon Nichol-
[147]
The Negro Problem
son. This occurred on Thursday, and on the
following Sunday night, Nicholson, in com-
pany with eleven or twelve of his friends, rode
to the farm of Maury, and after sending sev-
eral of their number to ascertain if he was at
home, rode rapidly into his yard and called for
him. Not finding him, they proceeded to
search the premises, and found several colored
men shut up in the smoke house, the door of
which some of the searching party had broken
open. Maury, the accused, was not found
there, and about that time some one called out,
"Here is George." Some of the party then
started in the direction of the cotton house
from which the voice proceeded, when a volley
was fired from it, and two of the searching
party were killed, one of whom was the son of
the former owner of the defendant, and the
other a brother-in-law of Nicholson. The
members of the raiding party testified that their
purpose in going to the home of the defendant
was merely to arrest him. It was, however,
shown that Nicholson, immediately after the
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Negro and the Law
fight on Thursday, informed Cobb, and Cobb
between Thursday and Sunday night collected
the men who joined in the raid. No affidavit
for the arrest of Maury had been made, and
none of the party had any warrant, or made
any announcement to the defendant or his fam-
ily, of the object of their visit. The accused
who testified in his own behalf, denied that he
was at home at the time of the shooting, and
says he fled before the raiding party arrived.
He also contradicted Nicholson in his account
of the difficulty with him, and denies that he
spoke harshly to the child." Chief Justice
Campbell, in delivering the opinion of the court
said, "It is inconceivable that the crime of
murder is predicable of the facts disclosed by
the evidence in this case. The time and place
and circumstances of the killing forbid any
such conclusion as a verdict of guilty of mur-
der." The judgment of the trial court was
reversed.
This same Chief Justice, in the case of Mon-
roe vs. Mississippi, 71 Miss. 201, where a ne-
[149]
The Negro Problem
gro was convicted of rape, makes use of the fol-
lowing brave and noble language, reversing
the case on the ground of the insufficiency of
the evidence: "We might greatly lighten our
labors by deferring in all cases to the verdict
approved by the presiding judge as to the facts,
but our duty is to administer justice without
respect of persons, and do equal right to the
poor and the rich. Hence the disposition,
which we are not ashamed to confess we have,
to guard jealously the rights of the poor and
friendless and despised, and to be astute as far
as we properly may, against injustice, whether
proceeding from wilfulness or indifference."
The country has produced no abler jurist,
nor the South no greater man than Ex-Chief
Justice Campbell of Mississippi. If the coun-
sel of such men as he and Chief Justice Garret
of the Court of Civil Appeals of Texas, could
obtain in the South, there would be no prob-
lem between the races. All would be contented
because justice would be administered to the
whites and blacks alike.
Negro and the Law
In the administration of the suffrage sections
under the new Constitutions of the South by
the partisan boards of registrars, the same dis-
crimination against negroes was practiced.
Their methods are of more or less interest.
The plan was to exclude all negroes from the
electorate without excluding a single white
man. Under the Alabama Constitution, a sol-
dier in the Civil War, either on the Federal or
Confederate side, is entitled to qualification.
When a negro goes up to register as a soldier
he is asked for his discharge. When he pre-
sents it he is asked, "How do we know that you
are the man whose name is written in this dis-
charge? Bring us two white men whom we
know and who will, swear that you have not
found this paper, and that they know that you
were a soldier in the company and regiment in
which you claim to have been." This, of
course, could not be done, and the ex-soldier
who risked his life for the Union is denied the
right to vote.
The Negro Problem
The same Constitution provides that if not
a soldier or the legal descendant of one, an
elector must be of good character and under-
stand the duties and obligations of citizenship
under a Republican form of government.
When a negro claims qualifications under the
good character and understanding clauses he
is put through an examination similar to the
following :
"What is a republican form of government?
What is a limited monarchy?
What islands did the United States come
into possession of by the Spanish-American
War?
What is the difference between Jeffersonian
Democracy and Calhoun principles, as com-
pared to the Monroe Doctrine?
If the Nicaragua Canal is cut, what will be
the effect if the Pacific Ocean is two feet higher
than the Atlantic?" Should these questions
be answered satisfactorily, the negro must still
produce two white men known to the registrars
to testify to his good character. A remarkable
Negro and the Law
exception in the treatment of negroes by the
registrars of Dallas county; Alabama, is shown
in the following account taken from the Mont-
gomery Advertizer: —
"An old negro barber by the name of Ed-
ward E. Harris, stepped in before the regis-
trars, hat in hand, humble and polite, with a
kindly smile on his face. He respectfully
asked to be registered. He signed the appli-
cation and waited a few minutes until the reg-
istrars had disposed of some other matters, and
being impressed with his respectful bearing,
some member of the board commenced to ask
a few questions. The old man told his story
in a straight forward manner. He said:
"Gentlemen, I am getting to be a pretty old
man. I was born here in the South, and I fol-
lowed my young master through all of the cam-
paigns in Virginia, when Mas' Bob Lee made
it so warm for the Yankees. But our luck left
us at Gettysburg. The Yankees got around
in our rear there, and I got a bullet in the back
of my head, and one in my leg before I got out
[153]
The Negro Problem
of that scrape. But I was not hurt much, and
my greatest anxiety was about my young mas-
ter, Mr. John Holly, who was a member of the
Bur Rifles, i8th Mississippi. He wras a private
and enlisted at Jackson, Miss.
"He could not be found the first day; I
looked all among the dead on the battle field
for him and he was not there. Next day I got
a permit to go through the hospitals, and I
looked into the face of every soldier closely, in
the hope of finding my young master. After
many hours of searching I found him, but he
was dangerously wounded. I stayed by his
side, wounded as I wras, for three long weeks,
but he gradually grew worse and then he died.
I went out with the body and saw it buried as
decently as I could, and then I went back to
Jackson and told the young mistress how brave
he was in battle, how good he was to me, and
told her all the words he had sent her, as he lay
there on that rude cot in the hospital. That is
my record as a Confederate soldier, and if you
gentlemen care to give me a certificate of reg-
Negro and the Law
istration, I would be much obliged to you.''
It is needless to say that old Ed. Harris got his
certificate.
It is insisted upon by the leaders of public
opinion at the South, that negroes should not
be given equal political and civil rights with
white men, defined by law and enforceable by
the courts; but that they should be content to
strive to deserve the good wishes and friendly
feeling of the whites, and if the South is let
alone, they will see to it that negroes get be-
coming treatment.
While there is a large number of the high-
toned, chivalrous element of the old master
class yet living, who would stand by the negro
and not permit him to be wronged if they
could prevent it, yet they are powerless to con-
trol the great mass of the poor whites who are
most bitter in their prejudices against the ne-
gro. They should also bear in mind that the
old master class is rapidly passing way, and
that there is constantly an influx of foreigners
to the South, and in less than fifty years the
[155]
The Negro Problem
Italians, or some other foreign nationalityr
may be the ruling class in all the Southern
States; and the negro, deprived of all political
and civil rights by the Constitution and laws,
would be wholly at the mercy of a people with-
out sympathy for him.
In order to show the fallacy and the wrong
and injustice of this doctrine, and how help-
lessly exposed it leaves the negro to the preju-
dices of the poor whites, I relate a tragedy in
the life of a friend of mine, who was well
known and respected in the town of Rayville,
Louisiana.
Sewall Smith, for many years ran the lead-
ing barber shop for whites in the town of Ray-
ville, and was well-liked and respected by the
leading white men of the entire parish. At the
suggestion of his customers he bought Louis-
iana state lands while they were cheap, before
the railroad was put through between Vicks-
burg and Shreveport; and as the road passed
near his lands he was thereby made a rich man,
as wealth goes in those parts. His good for-
Negro and the Law
tune, however, did not swell his head and he
remained the same to his friends. He became
so useful in his parish that there was never a
public gathering of the leading white business
men that he was not invited to it, and he was
always on the delegations to all the levee or
river conventions sent from his parish. He
was chosen to such places by white men exclus-
ively ; and in his own town he was as safe from
wrong or injury, on account of his race or
color, as any white man.
After the trains began to run through Ray-
ville, on the Shreveport road, he had occasion
to visit the town of Ruston, in another parish
some miles in the interior, and as he got off at
the depot, a barefoot, poor white boy asked to
carry his satchel. Smith was a fine looking
mulatto, dressed well, and could have easily
been taken for a white man, and the boy might
not have known at the time he was a negro.
When he arrived at his stopping place he gave
the boy such a large coin that he asked permis-
sion to take his satchel back to the train on the
[157]
The Negro Problem
following day when he was to return. The
next day the boy came for the satchel, and they
had nearly reached the depot about train time,
when they passed a saloon where a crowd of
poor whites sat on boxes whittling sticks. The
sight of a negro having a white boy carrying
his satchel quite enraged them, and after curs-
ing and abusing Smith and the boy, they under-
took to kick and assault Smith. Smith de-
fended himself. The result was a shooting af-
fair, in which Smith shot two or three of them
and was himself shot. The train rolled up
while the fight was in progress, and without
inquiring the cause or asking any questions-
whatever, fully a hundred white men jumped
off the train and riddled Smith with bullets.
That was the end of it. Nobody was indicted
or even arrested for killing an insolent "nigger"
that did not keep his place. That is the way
the affair was regarded in Ruston. Of course,
the people of Rayville very much regretted it,
but they could not do anything, and could not
afford to defend the rights of a negro against
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Negro and the Law
white men under such circumstances, and the
matter dropped.
I have preferred not to mention the numer-
ous ways and many instances in which the
rights of negroes are denied in public places,
and on the common carriers in the South,
under circumstances very humiliating and de-
grading. Nor have I cared to refer to the bar-
barous and inhuman prison systems of the
South, that are worse than anything the imag-
ination can conceive in a civilized and Christ-
ian land, as shown by reports of legislative
committees.
If the negro can secure a fair and impartial
trial in the courts, and can be secure in his life
and liberty and property, so as not to be de-
prived of them except by due process of law,
and can have a voice in the making and admin-
istration of the laws, he shall have gone a great
way in the South. It is to be hoped that public
opinion can be awakened to this extent, and
that it may assist him to attain that end.
[159]
The Characteristics of the Negro People
By H. T. KEALING
A frank statement of the virtues and failings of the race,
indicating very clearly the evils which must be overcome,
and the good which must be developed, if success is really to
attend the effort to uplift them.
H. T. KEALING.
THE CHARACTERISTICS OF THE
NEGRO PEOPLE
The characteristics of the Negro are of two
kinds — the inborn and the inbred. As they
reveal themselves to us, this distinction may
not be seen, but it exists. Inborn qualities are
ineradicable; they belong to the blood; they
constitute individuality; they are independent,
or nearly so, of time and habitat. Inbred qual-
ities are acquired, and are the result of exper-
ience. They may be overcome by a reversal
of the process which created them. The funda-
mental, or inborn, characteristics of the Negro
may be found in the African, as well as the
American, Negro ; but the inbred characteristics
of the latter belong to the American life alone.
There is but one human nature, made up of
constituent elements the same in all men, and
racial or national differences arise from the
The Negro Problem
predominance of one or another element in this
or that race. It is a question of proportion.
The Negro is not a Caucasian, not a Chinese,
not an Indian ; though no psychological quality
in the one is absent from the other. The same
moral sense, called conscience; the same love
of harmony in color or in sound; the same
pleasure in acquiring knowledge ; the same love
of truth in word, or of fitness in relation; the
same love of respect and approbation ; the same
vengeful or benevolent feelings; the same ap-
petites, belong to all, but in varying propor-
tions. They form the indicia to a people's mis-
sion, and are our best guides to God's purpose
in creating us. They constitute the material
to be worked on in educating a race, and sug-
gest in every case where the stress of civiliza-
tion or education should be applied in order to
follow the lines of least resistance.
But there are also certain manifestations,
the result of training or neglect, which are not
inborn. As they are inculcable, so they are
[164]
Characteristics
•eradicable ; and it is only by a loose terminology
that we apply the term characteristics to them
without distinction between them and the in-
herent traits. In considering the character-
istics of the Negro people, therefore, we must
not confuse the constitutional with the re-
movable. Studied with sympathy and at first
hand, the black man of America will be seen to
possess certain predominant idiosyncrasies of
which the following form a fair catalogue:
He is intensely religious. True religion is
based upon a belief in the supernatural, upon
faith and feeling. A people deeply supersti-
tious are apt to be deeply religious, for both
rest upon a belief in a spiritual world. Super-
stition differs from religion in being the un-
trained and unenlightened gropings of the hu-
man soul after the mysteries of the higher life;
while the latter, more or less enlightened, "feels
after God, if haply," it may find Him. The
Negro gives abundant evidence of both phases.
The absolute inability of the master, in the
days of slavery, while successfully vetoing all
[165]
The Negro Problem
other kinds of convocation, to stop the Negro's
church meetings, as well as the almost phenom-
enal influence and growth of his churches
since ; and his constant referring of every event,
adverse or favorable, to the personal ministra-
tions of the Creator, are things unique and per-
sistent. And the master class reposed more
faith in their slaves' religion ofttimes than they
did in their own. Doubtless much of the rev-
erential feeling that pervades the American
home to-day, above that of all other nations,
is the result of the Negro mammy's devotion
and loyalty to God.
He is imaginative. This is not evinced so
much in creative directions as in poetical,
musical, combinatory, inventional and what,
if coupled with learning, we call literary imag-
ination. Negro eloquence is proverbial. The
crudest sermon of the most unlettered slave
abounded in tropes and glowing tongue pic-
tures of apochalyptic visions all his own; and,
indeed, the poetic quality of his mind is seen
in all his natural efforts when the self-con-
[166]
Characteristics
sciousness of education does not stand guard.
The staid religious muse of Phillis Wheatley
and the rollicking, somewhat jibing, verse of
Dunbar show it equally, unpremeditated and
spontaneous.
I have heard by the hour some ordinary old
uneducated Negro tell those inimitable animal
stories, brought to literary existence in "Uncle
Remus," with such quaint humor, delicious con-
ceit and masterly delineation of plot, character
and incident that nothing but the conventional
rating of Aesop's Fables could put them in the
same class. Then, there are more Negro in-
ventors than the world supposes. This faculty
is impossible without a well-ordered imagin-
ation held in leash by a good memory and large
perception.
He is affectionate and without vindictiveness.
He does not nurse even great wrongs. Mer-
curial as he is, often furiously angry and fre-
quently in murderous mood, he comes nearer
not letting the sun go down upon his anger
The Negro Problem
than any other man I know. Like Brutus, he
may be compared to the flint which,
"Much enforced, shows a hasty spark,
And straight is cold again."
His affection is not less towards the Caucasian
than to his own race. It is not saying too
much to remark that the soul of the Negro
yearns for the white man's good will and re-
spect; and the old ties of love that subsisted in
so many instances in the days of slavery still
survive where the ex-slave still lives. The
touching case of a Negro Bishop who returned
to the State in which he had been a slave, and
rode twenty miles to see and alleviate the finan-
cial distress of his former master is an excep-
tion to numerous other similar cases only in
the prominence of the Negro concerned. I
know of another case of a man whose tongue
seems dipped in hyssop when he begins to tell
of the wrongs of his race, and who will not al-
low anyone to say in his presence that any
good came out of slavery, even incidentally;
yet he supports the widowed and aged wife of
[168]
Characteristics
his former master. And, surely, if these two
instances are not sufficient to establish the gen-
eral proposition, none will gainsay the patience,
vigilance, loyalty and helpfulness of the Negro
slave during the Civil War, and of his good old
wife who nursed white children at her breast
at a time when all ties save those of affection
were ruptured, and when no protection but de-
voted hearts watched over the "great house,"
whose head and master was at the front, right-
ing to perpetuate slavery. Was it stupidity on
the Negro's part? Not at all. He was well
informed as to the occurrences of the times.
A freemasonry kept him posted as well as the
whites were themselves on the course of the
war and the issue of each battle. Was it fear
that kept him at the old home? Not that,
either. Many thousands did cross the line to
freedom; many other thousands (200,000)
fought in the ranks for freedom, but none of
them — those who went and those who stayed
— those who fought and those who worked, —
betrayed a trust, outraged a female, or rebelled
[169]
The Negro Problem
against a duty. It was love, the natural well-
ings of affectionate natures.
He has great endurance, both dispositional
and physical. So true is the first that his pa-
tience has been the marvel of the world; and,
indeed, many, regarding this trait manifested
in such an unusual degree, doubted the Negro's
courage, till the splendid record of the '6o's and
the equal, but more recent, record of the '90*5,
wrote forbearance as the real explanation of
an endurance seemingly so at variance with
manly spirit.
Of his physical powers, his whole record as
a laborer at killing tasks in the most trying
climate in America speaks so eloquently that
nothing but the statistics of cotton, corn, rice,
sugar, railroad ties and felled forests can add
to the praise of this burden-bearer of the na-
tion. The census tables here are more roman-
tic and thrilling than figures of rhetoric.
He is courageous. His page in the war
record of this country is without blot or blem-
ish. His commanders unite in pronouncing
[I/O]
Characteristics
him admirable for courage in the field, com-
mendable for obedience in camp. That he
should exhibit such excellent fighting qualities
as a soldier, and yet exercise the forbearance
that characterizes him as a citizen, is re-
markable.
He is cheerful. His ivories are as famous
as his songs. That the South is "sunny" is
largely due to the brightness his rollicking
laugh and unfailing good nature bring to it.
Though the mudsill of the labor world, he
whistles as he hoes, and no dark breedings or
whispered conspirings mar the cheerful ac-
ceptance of the load he bears. Against the
rubber bumper of his good cheer things that
have crushed and maddened others rebound
without damage. When one hears the quaint
jubilee songs, set to minor cadence, he might
suppose them the expressions of a melancholy
people. They are not to be so interpreted.
Rather are they the expression of an exper-
ience, not a nature. Like the subdued voice
of a caged bird, these songs are the coinage of
The Negro Problem
an occasion, and not the free note of nature.
The slave sang of griefs he was not allowed to
discuss, hence his songs. This cheerfulness
has enabled the Negro to live and increase un-
der circumstances which, in all other instan-
ces, have decimated, if not exterminated, in-
ferior peoples. His plasticity to moulding
forces and his resiliency against crushing ones
come from a Thalian philosophy, unconscious
and unstudied, that extracts Epicurean delights
from funeral meats.
The above traits are inborn and fundamental,
belonging to the race everywhere, in Africa as
well as America. Strict correctness requires,
however, that attention be called to the fact
that there are tribal differences among African
Negroes that amount almost to the national
variations of Europe ; and these are reflected in
American Negroes, who are the descendants of
these different tribes. There is as much differ-
ence between the Mandingo and the Hottentot,
both black, as between the Italian and the Ger-
man, both white ; or between the Bushman and
Characteristics
the Zulu, both black, as between the Russian
and the Englishman, both white. Scientific
exactness, therefore, would require a closer
analysis of racial characteristics than an article
of this length could give; but, speaking in a
large way, it may be said that in whatever out-
ward conformity may come to the race in
America by reason of training or contact, these
traits will lie at the base, the very warp and
woof of his soul texture.
If, now, we turn to consider his inbred traits,
those the result of experience, conditions and
environments, we find that they exist mainly
as deficiencies and deformities. These have
been superimposed upon the native soul endow-
ment. Slavery has been called the Negro's
great schoolmaster, because it took him a sav-
age and released him civilized; took him a
heathen and released him a Christian ; took him
an idler and released him a laborer. Undoubt-
edly it did these things superficially, but one
great defect is to be charged against this school
— it did not teach him the meaning of home,
[173]
The Negro Problem
purity and providence. To do this is the bur-
den of freedom.
The emancipated Negro struggles up to-day
against many obstacles, the entailment of a
brutal slavery. Leaving out of consideration
the many who have already emerged, let us ap-
ply our thoughts to the great body of sub-
merged people in the congested districts of
city and country who present a real problem,
and who must be helped to higher things. We
note some of the heritages under which they
stagger up into full development:
Shiftlessness. He had no need to devise
and plan in bondage. There was no need for
an enterprising spirit ; consequently, he is lack-
ing in leadership and self-reliance. He is in-
clined to stay in ruts, and applies himself list-
lessly to a task, feeling that the directive
agency should come from without.
Incontinence. It is not to the point
to say that others are, too. Undoubt-
edly, example has as much to do with this lax-
ity as neglect. We simply record the fact. A
[174]
Characteristics
slave's value was increased by his prolificacy.
Begetting children for the auction block could
hardly sanctify family ties. It was not nearly
so necessary for a slave to know his father as
his owner. Added to the promiscuity encour-
aged and often forced among this class, was the
dreadful license which cast lustful Caucasian-
eyes upon "likely" Negro women.
Indolence. Most men are, especially in a
warm climate: but the Negro acquired more
than the natural share, because to him as a
bondman laziness was great gain, for he had
no pecuniary interest in his own labor. Hence,
holidays were more to be desired than whole
labor days, and he learned to do as little as he
might, be excused as often as he could, and hail
Saturday as the oasis in a desert week. He hails
it yet. The labor efficiency of the Negro has
greatly increased since the emancipation, for
self-interest is a factor now. In 1865, each
Negro produced two- thirds of a bale of cotton ;
now he produces an average of one whole bale
to the man. But there is still woful waste of
[175]
The Negro Problem
productive energy. A calculation showing the
comparative productive capacity, man for man,
between the Northen and Southern laborer
would be very interesting.
Improvidence and Extravagance. He will
drop the most important job to go on an
excursion or parade with his lodge. He spends
large sums on expensive clothing and luxuries,
while going without things necessary to a
real home. He will cheerfully eat fat bacon
and "pone" corn-bread all the weeek in order
to indulge in unlimited soda-water, melon and
fish at the end. In the cities he is oftener seen
dealing with the pawn-broker than the banker.
His house, when furnished at all, is better fur-
nished that that of a white man of equal earn-
ing power, but it is on the installment plan.
He is loath to buy a house, because he has no
taste for responsibility nor faith in himself to
manage large concerns; but organs, pianos,
clocks, sewing-machines and parlor suits, on
time, have no terrors for him. This is because
he has been accustomed to think in small num-
Characteristics
bers. He does not regard the Scotchman's
"mickle," because he does not stop to consider
that the end is a "muckle." He has amassed,
at full valuation, nearly a billion dollars' worth
of property, despite this, but this is about one-
half of what proper providence would have
shown.
Untidiness. Travel through the South
and you will be struck with the general misfit
and dilapidated appearance of things. Palings
are missing from the fences, gates sag on single
hinges, houses are unpainted, window panes
are broken, yards unkempt and the appearance
of a squalor greater than the real is seen on
every side. The inside of the house meets the
suggestions of the outside. This is a projec-
tion of the slave's "quarters" into freedom.
The cabin of the slave was, at best, a place to
eat and sleep in; there was no thought of the
esthetic in such places. A quilt on a plank was
a luxury to the tired farm-hand, and paint was
nothing to the poor, sun-scorched fellow who
sought the house for shade rather than beauty.
The Negro Problem
Habits of personal cleanliness were not incul-
cated, and even now it is the exception to find
a modern bath-room in a Southern home.
Dishonesty. This is the logic, if not
the training, of slavery. It is easy for the un-
requited toiler in another's field to justify re-
prisal ; hence there arose among the Negroes an
amended Commandment which added to "Thou
shalt not steal" the clause, "except thou be
stolen from." It was no great fault, then,
according to this code, to purloin a pig, a sheep,
a chicken, or a few potatoes from a master who
took all from the slave.
Untruthfulness. This is seen more in in-
nocent and childish exaggeration than in vic-
ious distortion. It is the vice of untutored
minds to run to gossip and make miracles of
the matter-of-fact. The Negro also tells false-
hoods from excess of good nature. He prom-
ises to do a piece of work on a certain day, be-
cause it is so much easier and pleasanter to say
Yes, and stay away, than it is to say No.
Characteristics
Business Unreliability. He does not meet
a promise in the way and at the time
promised. Not being accustomed to business,
he has small conception of the place the
promise has in the business world. It is
only recently he has begun to deal with banks.
He, who has no credit, seees no loss of it in a
protested note, especially if he intends to pay
it some time. That chain which links one
man's obligation to another man's solvency he
has not considered. He is really as good 'and
safe a debt-payer when he owes a white man as
the latter can have, but the methods of the mod-
ern bank, placing a time limit on debts, is his
detestation. He much prefers the laissez-faire
of the Southern plantation store.
Lack of Initiative. It was the policy
of slavery to crush out the combining
instinct, and it was well done; for, outside
of churches and secret societies, the Negro
has done little to increase the social ef-
ficiency which can combine many men into an
organic whole, subject to the corporate will
[179]
The Negro Problem
and direction. He has, however, made some
hopeful beginnings.
Suspicion of his own race. He was
taught to watch other Negroes and tell all that
they did. This was slavery's native detective
force to discover incipient insurrection. Each
slave learned to distrust his fellow. And
added to this is the knowledge one Negro has
that no other has had half sufficient experience
in business to be a wise counsellor, or a safe
steward of another man's funds. Almost all
Negroes who have acquired wealth have en-
trusted its management to white men.
Ignorance. The causes of his ignorance all
know. That he has thrown off one-half of it
in forty years is a wonderful showing; but a
great incubus remains in the other half, and it
demands the nation's attention. What the
census calls literacy is often very shallow. The
cause of this shallowness lies, in part, in the
poor character and short duration of Southern
schools; in the poverty that snatches the child
from school prematurely to work for bread;
[180]
Characteristics
in the multitude of mushroom colleges and get-
smart-quick universities scattered over the
South, and in the glamour of a professional
education that entices poorly prepared students
into special work.
Add to this, too, the commercialism of the
age which regards each day in school as a day
out of the market. Boys and girls by scores
learn the mechanical parts of type-writing and
stenography without the basal culture which
gives these callings their greatest efficiency.
They copy a manuscript, Chinese-like, mistakes
and all ; they take you phonetically in sense as
well as sound, having no reserve to draw upon
to interpret a learned allusion or unusual
phrase. Thus while prejudice makes it hard
to secure a place, auto-deficiency loses many
a one that is secured.
We have discussed the leading character-
istics of the Negro, his inborn excellencies and
inbred defects, candidly and as they are to be
seen in the great mass whose place determines
the status of the race as a whole. It would,
[181]
The Negro Problem
however, be to small purpose if we did not ask
what can be done to develop the innate good
and correct the bad in a race so puissant and
numerous? This mass is not inert; it has
great reactionary force, modifying and influ-
encing all about it. The Negro's excellences
have entered into American character and life
already; so have his weaknesses. He has
brought cheer, love, emotion and religion in
saving measure to the land. He has given it
wealth by his brawn and liberty by his blood.
His self-respect, even in abasement, has kept
him struggling upward; his confidence in his
own future has infected his friends and kept
him from nursing despondency or planning an-
archy. But he has laid, and does lay, burdens
upon the land, too: his ignorance, his low av-
erage of morality, his low standards of home,
his lack of enterprise, his lack of self-reliance
— these must be cured.
Evidently, he is to be "solved" by educational
processes. Everyone of his inborn traits must
be respected and developed to proper propor-
Characteristics
tion. Excesses and excrescences must not be
carelessly dealt with, for they mark the fertility
of a soil that raises rank weeds because no gar-
dener has tilled it. His religion must become
"ethics touched with feeling" — not a paroxysm,
but a principle. His imagination must be given
a rudder to guide its sails; and the first fruits
of its proper exercise, as seen in a Dunbar, a
Chesnutt, a Coleridge-Taylor and a Tanner,
must be pedestaled along the Appian Way over
which others are to march. His affection must
be met with larger love ; his patience rewarded
with privilege ; his courage called to defend the
rights of others rather than redress his own
wrongs. Thus shall he supplement from
within the best efforts of good men without.
To cure the evils entailed upon him by an
unhappy past, he must be educated to work
with skill, with self-direction, in combination
and unremittingly. Industrial education with
constant application, is the slogan of his rise
from racial pauperism to productive manliness.
Not that exceptional minds should not have
The Negro Problem
exceptional opportunities (and they already
exist) ; but that the great majority of awkward
and unskilled ones, who must work somehow,
somewhere, all the time, shall have their op-
portunities for training in industrial schools
near them and with courses consonant with the
lives they are to lead. Let the ninety and nine
who must work, either with trained or fumb-
ling hands, have a chance. Train the Negro
to accept and carry responsibility by putting it
upon him. Train him, more than any schools
are now doing, in morals — to speak the truth,
to keep a promise, to touch only his own prop-
erty, to trust the trustworthy among his own
race, to risk something in business, to strike
out in new lines of endeavor, to buy houses and
make homes, to regard beauty as well as util-
ity, to save rather than display. In short, let
us subordinate mere knowledge to the work of
invigorating the will, energizing productive ef-
fort and clarifying moral vision. Let us make
safe men rather than vociferous mountebanks ;
let us put deftness in daily labor above sleight-
Characteristics
of-hand tricks, and common sense, well trained,
above classical smatterings, which awe the mul-
titude but butter no parsnips.
If we do this, America will have enriched
her blood, ennobled her record and shown the
world how to deal with its Dark Races without
reproach.
Representative American Negroes
By PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR
An enumeration of some of the noteworthy American
Negroes of to-day and yesterday, with some account of
their lives and their work. In this paper Mr. Dunbar
has turned out his largest and most successful picture of the
colored people. It is a noble canvas crowded with heroic
fgures.
PAUL LAURENCE DUNBAR.
REPRESENTATIVE AMERICAN
NEGROES
In considering who and what are representa-
tive Negroes there are circumstances which
compel one to question what is a representative
man of the colored race. Some men are born
great, some achieve greatness and others lived
during the reconstruction period. To have
achieved something for the betterment of his
race rather than for the aggrandizement of
himself, seems to be a man's best title to be
called representative. The street corner poli-
tician, who through questionable methods or
even through skinful manipulation, succeeds
in securing the janitorship of the Court House,
may be written up in the local papers as "rep-
resentative," but is he?
I have in mind a young man in Baltimore,
Bernard Taylor by name, who to me is more
[189]
The Negro Problem
truly representative of the race than half of
the "Judges," "Colonels," "Doctors" and
"Honorables" whose stock cuts burden the
pages of our .negro journals week after week.
I have said that he is young. Beyond that he
is quiet and unobtrusive; but quiet as he is, the
worth of his work can be somewhat estimated
when it is known that he has set the standard
for young men in a city that has the largest
colored population in the world.
It is not that as an individual he has ridden
to success one enterprise after another. It is
not that he has shown capabilities far beyond
his years, nor yet that his personal energy will
not let him stop at one triumph. The im-
portance of him lies in the fact that his influ-
ence upon his fellows is all for good, and in a
large community of young Negroes the worth
of this cannot be over-estimated. He has
taught them that striving is worth while, and
by the very force of his example of industry
and perseverance, he stands out from the mass.
He does not tell how to do things, he does
[190]
Representative Negroes
them. Nothing has contributed more to his
success than his alertness, and nothing has been
more closely followed by his observers, and
yet I sometimes wonder when looking at him,
how old he must be, how world weary, before
the race turns from its worship of the political
janitor and says of him, "this is one of our
representative men."
This, however, is a matter of values and
neither the negro himself, his friends, his ene-
mies, his lauders, nor his critics has grown
quite certain in appraising these. The rabid
agitator who goes about the land preaching
the independence and glory of his race, and by
his very mouthings retarding both, the saintly
missionary, whose only mission is like that ot
"Pooh Bah," to be insulted; the man of the
cloth who thunders against the sins of the
world and from whom honest women draw
away their skirts, the man who talks temper-
ance and tipples high-balls — these are not rep-
resentative, and whatever their station in life,
The Negro Problem
they should be rated at their proper value, for
there is a difference between attainment and
achievement.
Under the -pure light of reason, the ignor-
ant carpet bagger judge is a person and not a
personality. The illiterate and inefficient
black man, whom circumstance put into Con-
gress, was "a representative" but was not repre-
sentative. So the peculiar conditions of the
days immediately after the war have made it
necessary to draw fine distinctions.
When Robert Smalls, a slave, piloted the
Confederate ship Planter out of Charleston
Harbor under the very guns of the men who
were employing him, who owned him, his
body, his soul, and the husk of his allegiance,
and brought it over to the Union, it is a ques-
tion which forty years has not settled as to-
whether he was a hero or a felon, a patriot or
a traitor. So much has been said of the old
Negro's fidelity to his masters that something
different might have been expected of him.
But take the singular conditions : the first faint
[192]
Representative Negroes
streaks of a long delayed dawn had just begun
to illumine the sky and this black pilot with his
face turned toward the East had no eye for
the darkness behind him. He had no time to
analyze his position, the right or wrong of it.
He had no opportunity to question whether it
was loyalty to a union in which he aspired to
citizenship, or disloyalty to his masters of the
despised confederacy. It was not a time to
argue, it was a time to do ; and with rare pow-
er of decision, skill of action and with indom-
itable courage, he steered the good ship Planter
past Fort Johnson, past Fort Sumter, past
Morris Island, out where the flag, the flag of
his hopes and fears floated over the federal
fleet. And Robert Smalls had done some-
thing, something that made him loved and
hated, praised and maligned, revered and de-
spised, but something that made him represen-
tative of the best that there is in sturdy Negro
manhood.
It may seem a far cry from Robert Smalls,
the pilot of the Planter, to Booker T. Wash-
[193]
The Negro Problem
ington, Principal of the Institute at Tuskegee,
Alabama. But much the same traits of char-
acter have made the success of the two men;
the knowledge of what to do, the courage to
do it, and the following out of a single pur-
pose. They are both pilots, and the waters
through which their helms have swung have
been equally stormy. The methods of both
have been questioned; but singularly neither
one has stopped to question himself, but has
gone straight on to his goal over the barriers
of criticism, malice and distrust. The secret
of Mr. Washington's power is organization,
and organization after all is only a concentra-
tion of force. This concentration only ex-
presses his own personality, in which every
trait and quality tend toward one definite end.
They say of this man that he is a man of one
idea, but that one is a great one and he has
merely concentrated all his powers upon it; in
other words he has organized himself and gone
forth to gather in whatever about him was es-
sential.
[194]
Representative Negroes
Pilot he is, steadfast and unafraid, strong
in his own belief, — yes strong enough to make
others believe in him. Without doubt or
skepticism, himself he has confounded the
skeptics.
Less statesmanlike than Douglass, less schol-
arly than DuBois, less eloquent than the late
J. C. Price, he is yet the foremost figure in
Negro national life. He is a great educator
and a great man, and though one may not al-
ways agree with him, one must always respect
him. The race has produced no more adroit
diplomatist than he. The statement is broad
but there is no better proof of it than the fact
that while he is our most astute politician, he
has succeeded in convincing both himself and
the country that he is not in politics. He has
none of the qualities of the curb-stone poli-
tician. He is bigger, broader, better, and the
highest compliment that could be paid him is
that through all his ups and downs, with all
he has seen of humanity, he has kept his faith
and his ideals. While Mr. Washington stands
[195]
The Negro Problem
pre-eminent in his race there are other names
that must be mentioned with him as co-work-
ers in the education of the world, names that
for lack of time can be only mentioned and
passed.
W. H. Council, of Normal, Alabama, has
been doing at his school a good and great
work along the same lines as Tuskegee. R.
R. Wright, of the State College of Georgia,
"We'se a-risin' Wright," he is called, and by
his own life and work for his people he has
made true the boyish prophecy which in the
old days inspired Whittier's poem. Three de-
cades ago this was his message from the lowly
South, "Tell 'em we'se a-risin," and by
thought, by word, by deed, he has been "Tellin'
ern so" ever since. The old Southern school
has melted into the misty shades of an unre-
gretted past. A new generation, new issues,
new conditions, have replaced the old, but the
boy who sent that message from the heart of
the Southland to the North's heart of hearts has
risen, and a martyred President did not blush
to call him friend.
Representative Negroes
So much of the Negro's time has been given
to the making of teachers that it is difficult to
stop when one has begun enumerating some
of those who have stood out more than usually
forceful. For my part, there are two more
whom I cannot pass over. Kelly Miller, of
Howard University, Washington, D. C, is an-
other instructor far above the average. He is
a mathematician and a thinker. The world
has long been convinced of what the colored
man could do in music and in oratory, but it
has always been skeptical, when he is to be
considered as a student of any exact science.
Miller, in his own person, has settled all that.
He finished at Johns Hopkins where they will
remember him. He is not only a teacher but
an author who writes with authority upon his
chosen themes, whether he is always known as
a Negro writer or not. He is endowed with
an accurate, analytical mind, and the most en-
gaging blackness, for which some of us thank
God, because there can be no argument as to
the source of his mental powers.
[197]
The Negro Problem
Now of the other, William E. B. DuBois,
what shall be said? Educator and author, po-
litical economist and poet, an Eastern man
against a Southern back-ground, he looms up
strong, vivid and in bold relief. I say looms
advisedly, because, intellectually, there is some-
thing so distinctively big about the man.
Since the death of the aged Dr. Crummell, we
have had no such ripe and finished scholar.
Dr. DuBois, Harvard gave him to us, and
there he received his Ph. D., impresses one as
having reduced all life and all literature to a
perfect system. There is about him a fascin-
ating calm of certain power, whether as a
searcher after economic facts, under the wing
of the University of Pennsylvania, or defying
the "powers that be" in a Negro college or
leading his pupils along the way of light, one
always feels in him this same sense of con-
scious, restrained, but assured force.
Some years ago in the course of his re-
searches, he took occasion to tell his own peo-
ple some plain hard truths, and oh, what a
Representative Negroes
howl of protest and denunciation went up from
their assembled throats, but it never once dis-
turbed his magnificent calm. He believed
what he had said, and not for a single moment
did he think of abandoning his position.
He goes at truth as a hard-riding old Eng-
glish squire would take a difficult fence. Let
the ditch be beyond if it will.
Dr. DuBois would be the first to disclaim
the name of poet but everything outside of his
statistical work convicts him. The rhythm of
his style, his fancy, his imagery, all bid him
bide with those whose souls go singing by a
golden way. He has written a number of
notable pamphlets and books, the latest of
which is "The Soul of the Black Folk/' an in-
valuable contribution to the discussion of the
race problem by a man who knows whereof he
speaks.
Dr. DuBois is at Atlanta University and has
had every opportunity to observe all the phases
of America's great question, and I wish I
might write at length of his books.
[199]
The Negro Problem
It may be urged that too much time has al-
ready been taken up with the educational side
of the Negro, but the reasonableness of this
must become apparent when one remembers
that for the last forty years the most helpful
men of the race have come from the ranks of
its teachers, and few of those who have finally
done any big thing, but have at some time or
other held the scepter of authority in a school.
They may have changed later and grown, in-
deed they must have done so, but the fact re-
mains that their poise, their discipline, the im-
pulse for their growth came largely from their
work in the school room.
There is perhaps no more notable example
of this phase of Negro life than the Hon. Rich-
ard Theodore Greener, our present Consul at
Vladivostok. He wras, I believe, the first of
our race to graduate from Harvard and he has
always been regarded as one of the most schol-
arly men who, through the touch of Negro
blood, belongs to us. He has been historian,
journalist and lecturer, but back of all this he
[200]
Representative Negroes
was a teacher; and for years after his gradua-
tion he was a distinguished professor at the
most famous of all the old Negro colleges.
This institution .is now a thing of the past, but
the men who knew it in its palmy days speak
of it still with longing and regret. It is
claimed, and from the names and qualities of
the men, not without justice, that no school
for the higher education of the black man has
furnished a finer curriculum or possessed a bet-
ter equipped or more efficient faculty. Among
these, Richard T. Greener was a bright, par-
ticular star.
After the passing of the school, Mr. Greener
turned to other activities. His highest char-
acteristics were a fearless patience and a hope
that buoyed him up through days of doubt and
disappointment. Author and editor he was,
but he was not satisfied with these. Beyond
their scope were higher things that beckoned
him. Politics, or perhaps better, political
science, allured him, and he applied himself to
a course that brought him into intimate con-
[201]
The Negro Problem
tact with the leaders of his country, white and
black. A man of wide information, great
knowledge and close grasp of events he made
himself invaluable to his party and then with
his usual patience awaited his reward.
The story of how he came to his own cannot
be told. without just a shade of bitterness dark-
ening the smile that one must give to it all.
The cause for which he had worked triumphed.
The men for whom he had striven gained their
goal and now. Greener must be recognized,
but —
Vladivostok, your dictionary will tell you,
is a sea-port in the maritime Province of Si-
beria, situated on the Golden Horn of Peter
the Great. It will tell you also that it is the
chief Russian naval station on the Pacific. It
is an out of the way place and one who has not
the world-circling desire would rather hesitate
before setting out thither. It was to this post
that Mr. Greener was appointed.
"Exile," his friends did not hesitate to say.
"Why didn't the Government make it a sen-
[202]
Representative Negroes
tence instead of veiling it in the guise of an
appointment?" asked others sarcastically.
"Will he go?" That was the general ques-
tion that rose and fell, whispered and thun-
dered about the new appointee, and in the
midst of it all, silent and dignified, he kept his
council. The next thing Washington knew
he was gone. There was a gasp of astonish-
ment and then things settled back into their
former state of monotony and Greener was
forgotten.
But in the eastern sky, darkness began to
arise, the warning flash of danger swept across
the heavens, the thunder drum of war began
to roll. For a moment the world listened in
breathless suspense, the suspense of horror.
Louder and louder rose the thunder peal until
it drowned every other sound in the ears of
the nation, every other sound save the cries
and wails of dying women and the shrieks of
tortured children. Then France, England,
Germany, Japan and America marshalled their
forces and swept eastward to save and to
[203]
The Negro Problem
avenge. The story of the Boxer uprising has
been told, but little has been said of how Vlad-
ivostok, "A sea-port in the maritime Province
of Siberia," became one of the most important
points of communication with the outside
world, and its Consul came frequently to be
heard from by the State Department. And so
Greener after years of patience and toil had
come to his own. If the government had
wished to get him out of the way, it had reck-
oned without China.
A new order of things has come into Negro-
American politics and this man has become
a part of it. It matters not that he began his
work under the old regime. So did Judge
Gibbs, a man eighty years of age, but he, too,
has kept abreast of the times, and although the
reminiscences in his delightful autobiography
take one back to the hazy days when the land
was young and politics a more strenuous thing
than it is even now, when there was anarchy
in Louisiana and civil war in Arkansas, when
one shot first and questioned afterward; yet
[204]
Representative Negroes
because his mind is still active, because he has
changed his methods with the changing time,
because his influence over young men is greatly
potent still ; he is, in the race, perhaps, the best
representative of what the old has brought to
the new.
Beside him strong, forceful, commanding,
stands the figure of George H. White, whose
farewell speech before the Fifty-sixth Con-
gress, when through the disf ranch isement of
Negroes he was defeated for re-election, stir-
red the country and fired the hearts of his
brothers. He has won his place through hon-
esty, bravery and aggressiveness. He has
given something to the nation that the nation
needed, and with such men as Pinchback,
Lynch, Terrell and others of like ilk, acting in
concert, it is but a matter of time when his
worth shall induce a repentant people, with a
justice builded upon the foundation of its old
prejudice, to ask the Negro back to take a
hand in the affairs of state.
[205]
The Negro Problem
Add to all this the facts that the Negro has
his representatives in the commercial world:
McCoy and Granville T. Woods, inventors; in
the agricultural world with J. H. Groves, the
potato king of Kansas, who last year shipped
from his own railway siding seventy-two
thousand five hundred bushels of potatoes
alone; in the military, with Capt. Charles A.
Young, a West Pointer, now stationed at the
Presidio; that in medicine, he possesses in
Daniel H. Williams, of Chicago, one of
the really great surgeons of the coun-
try; that Edward H. Morris, a black man,
is one of the most brilliant lawyers at
the brilliant Cook County bar; that in every
walk of life he has men and women who stand
for something definite and concrete, and it
seems to me that there can be little doubt that
the race problem will gradually solve itself.
I have spoken of "men and women," and in-
deed the women must not be forgotten, for to
them the men look for much of the inspiration
and impulse that drives them forward to sue-
[206]
Representative Negroes
cess. Mrs. Mary Church Terrell upon the
platform speaking for Negro womanhood and
Miss Sarah Brown, her direct opposite, a little
woman sitting up in her aerie above a noisy
New York street, stand for the very best that
there is in our mothers, wives and sisters.
The one fully in the public eye, with learning
and eloquence, telling the hopes and fears of
her kind ; the other in suffering and retirement,
with her knowledge of the human heart and
her gentleness inspiring all who meet her to
better and nobler lives. They are both doing
their work bravely and grandly. But when
the unitiate ask who is "la Petite Reine," we
think of the quiet little woman in a New York
fifth floor back and are silent.
She is a patron of all our literature and art
and we have both. Whether it is a new song
by Will Marion Cook or a new book by Du-
Bois or Chestnut, than whom no one has ever
told the life of the Negro more accurately and
convincingly, she knows it and has a kindly
word of praise or encouragement.
[207]
The Negro Problem
In looking over the field for such an article
as this, one just begins to realize how many
Negroes are representative of something, and
now it seems .that in closing no better names
could be chosen than those of the two Tanners.
From time immemorial, Religion and Art
have gone together, but it remained for us to
place them in the persons of these two men, in
the relation of father and son. Bishop Benj.
Tucker Tanner, of the A. M. E. Church, is not
only a theologian and a priest, he is a dignified,
polished man of the higher world and a poet.
He has succeeded because he was prepared for
success. As to his writings, he will, perhaps,
think most highly of "His Apology For Afri-
can Methodism;" but some of us, while re-
specting this, will turn from it to the poems
and hymns that have sung themselves out of
his gentle heart.
Is it any wonder that his son, Henry O. Tan-
ner, is a poet with the brush or that the French
Government has found it out ? From the
father must have come the man's artistic im-
[208]
Representative Negroes
pulse, and he carried it on and on to a golden
fruition. In the Luxembourg gallery hangs his
picture, "The Raising of Lazarus." At the
Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, I saw his
"Annunciation," both a long way from his
"Banjo Lesson," and thinking of him I began
to wonder whether, in spite of all the industrial
tumult, it were not in the field of art, music and
literature that the Negro was to make his high-
est contribution to American civilization. But
this is merely a question which time will
answer.
All these of whom I have spoken are men
who have striven and achieved and the reasons
underlying their success are the same that ac-
count for the advancement of men of any other
race : preparation, perseverance, bravery, pa-
tience, honesty and the power to seize the op-
portunity.
It is a little dark still, but there are warnings
of the day and somewhere out of the darkness
a bird is singing to the Dawn.
[209]
The Negro s Place in American Life at
the Present Day
By T. THOMAS FORTUNE
Considering the two hundred and forty-five years of
his slavery and the comparatively short time he has en-
joyed the opportunities of freedom, his place in American
life at the present day is creditable to him and promising
for the future.
T. THOMAS FORTUNE.
THE
NEGRO'S PLACE IN AMERICAN
LIFE AT THE PRESENT DAY.
There can be no healthy growth in the life
of a race or a nation without a self-reliant
spirit animating the whole body; if it amounts
to optimism, devoid of egotism and vanity, so
much the better. This spirit necessarily car-
ries with it intense pride of race, or of nation,
as the case may be, and ramifies the whole
mass, inspiring and shaping its thought and ef-
fort, however humble or exalted these may
be, — as it takes uall sorts and conditions of
men" to make up a social order, instinct with
the ambition and the activity which work for
"high thinking and right living," of which
modern evolution in all directions is the most
powerful illustration in history. If pride of
The Negro Problem
ancestry can, happily, be added to pride of race
and nation, and these are re-enforced by self-
reliance, courage and correct moral living, the
possible success of such people may be ac-
cepted, without equivocation, as a foregone
conclusion. I have found all of these require-
ments so finely blended in the life and char-
acter of no people as that' of the Japanese, who
are just now emerging from "the double night
of ages" into the vivifying sunlight of modern
progress.
What is the Negro's place in American life
at the present day?
The answer depends entirely upon the point
of view. Unfortunately for the Afro-Amer-
ican people, they have no pride of ancestry ; in
the main, few of them can trace their parent-
age back four generations ; and the "daughter
of an hundred earls" of whom there are prob-
ably many, is unconscious of her descent, and
would profit nothing by it if this were not true.
The blood of all the ethnic types that go to
make up American citizenship flows in the
Place in American Life
veins of the Afro- American people, so that of
the ten million of them in this country, ac-
counted for by the Federal census, not more
than four million are of pure negroid descent,
while some four million of them, not accounted
for by the Federal census, have escaped into
the ranks of the white race, and are re-enforced
very largely by such escapements every year.
The vitiation of blood has operated irresistibly
to weaken that pride of ancestry, which is the
foundation-stone of pride of race; so that the
Afro- American people have been held together
rather by the segregation decreed by law and
public opinion than by ties of consanguinity
since their manumission and enfranchisement.
It is not because they are poor and ignorant
and oppressed, as a mass, that there is no such
sympathy of thought and unity of effort among
them as among Irishmen and Jews the world
over, but because the vitiation of blood, beyond
the honorable restrictions of law, has destroyed,
in large measure, that pride of ancestry upon
which pride of race must be builded. In no
The Negro Problem
other logical way can we account for the failure
of the Afro- American people to stand together,
as other oppressed races do, and have done, for
the righting of wrongs against them author-
ized by the laws of the several states, if not by
the Federal Constitution, and sanctioned or
tolerated by public opinion. In nothing has
this radical defect been more noticeable since
the War of the Rebellion than in the uniform
failure of the people to sustain such civic or-
ganizations as exist and have existed, to test
in the courts of law and in the forum of public
opinion the validity of organic laws of States
intended to deprive them of the civil and polit-
ical rights guaranteed to them by the Federal
Constitution. The two such organizations of
this character which have appealed to them are
the National A fro- American League, organ-
ized in Chicago, in 1890, and the National
A fro- American Council, organized in Roches-
ter, New York, out of the League, in 1898.
The latter organization still exists, the strong-
est of its kind, but it has never commanded the
Place in American Life
sympathy and support of the masses of the
people, nor is there, or has there been, substan-
tial agreement and concert of effort among the
thoughtful men of the race along these lines.
They have been restrained by selfish, personal
and petty motives, while the constitutional
rights which vitalize their citizenship have been
"denied or abridged" by legislation of certain
of the States and by public opinion, even as
Nero fiddled while Rome burned. If they had
been actuated by a strong pride of ancestry and
of race, if they had felt that injury to one was
injury to all, if they had hung together instead
of hanging separately, their place in the civil
and political life of the Republic to-day would
not be that, largely, of pariahs, with none so
poor as to do them honor, but that of equality
of right under the law enjoyed by all other alien
ethnic, forces in our citizenship. They who
will not help themselves are usually not
helped by others. They who make a loud
noise and courageously contend for what
is theirs, usually enjoy the respect and
The Negro Problem
confidence of their fellows and get, in the
end, what belongs to them, or a reasonable
modification of it.
As a consequence of inability to unite in
thought and effort for the conservation of their
civil and political rights, the Afro-American
Negroes and colored people have lost, by funda-
mental enactments of the old slave-holding
States, all of the civil and political rights guar-
anteed them by the Federal Constitution, in the
full enjoyment of which they were from
the adoption of the War Amendments
up to 1876-7, when they were sacrificed
by their Republican allies of the North and
West, in the alienation of their State govern-
ments, in order to save the Presidency to Mr.
Rutherford B. Hayes of Ohio. Their re-
verses in this matter in the old slave-holding
States, coupled with a vast mass of class legis-
lation, modelled on the slave code, have af-
fected the Afro- American people in their civil
and political rights in all of the States
of the Republic, especially as far as pub-
[218]
Place in American Life
lie opinion is concerned. This was inevitable,
and follows in every instance in history where
a race element of the citizenship is set aside by
law or public opinion as separate and dis-
tinct from its fellows, with a fixed status or
caste.
It will take the Afro-American people fully
a century to recover what they lost of civil and
political equality under the law in the Southern
States, as a result of the re-actionary and
bloody movement begun in the Reconstruction
period by the Southern whites, and culminating
in 1877, — the excesses of the Reconstruction
governments, about which so much is said to
the discredit of the Negro, being chargeable to
the weakness and corruption of Northern car-
pet-baggers, who were th£ master and respon-
sible spirits of the time and the situation,
rather than to the weakness, the ignorance and
venality of their Negro dupes, who, very nat-
urally, followed where they led, as any other
grateful people would have done. For, were
not these same Northern carpet-baggers the di-
[219]
The Negro Problem
rect representatives of the Government and the
Army which crushed the slave power and
broke the shackles of the slave? Even so.
The Northern carpet-baggers planned and got
the plunder^ and have it; the Negro got the
credit and the odium, and have them yet. It
often happens that way in history, that the in-
nocent dupes are made to suffer for the mis-
deeds and crimes of the guilty.
The recovery of civil and political rights un-
der the Constitution, as "denied or abridged"
by the constitutions of the States, more espec-
ially those of the old slave holding ones, will
be a slow and tedious process, and will come to
the individual rather than to the race, as the re-
ward of character and thrift; because, for
reasons already stated, it will hardly be pos-
sible in the future, as it has not been in the past,
to unify the mass of the Afro- American people,
in thought and conduct, for a proper conten-
tion in the courts and at the ballot-box and in
the education of public opinion, to accomplish
this purpose. Perhaps there is no other in-
[220]
Place in American Life
stance in history where everything depended
so largely upon the individual, and so little
upon the mass of his race, for that development
in the religious and civic virtues which makes
more surely for an honorable status in any cit-
izenship than constitutions or legislative enact-
ments built upon them.
But even from this point of view, I am dis-
posed to believe that the Negro's civil and po-
litical rights are more firmly fixed in law and
public opinion than was true at the close of the
Reconstruction period, when everything relat-
ing to him was unsettled and confused, based
in legislative guarantees, subject to approval or
disapproval of the dominant public opinion of
the several States, and that he will gradually
work out his own salvation under the Consti-
tution,— such as Charles Sumner, Thaddeus
Stevens, Benjamin F. Butler, Frederick Doug-
lass, and their co-workers, hoped and labored
that he might enjoy. He has lost nothing un-
der the fundamental law; such of these restric-
tions, as apply to him by the law of certain of
[221]
The Negro Problem
the States, necessarily apply to white men in
like circumstances of ignorance and poverty,
and can be overcome, in time, by assiduous
courtship of the schoolmaster and the bank
cashier. The extent to which the individual
members of the race are overcoming the re-
strictions made a bar to their enjoyment of
civil and political rights under the Constitution
is gratifying to those who wish the race well
and who look beyond the present into the fut-
ure; while it is disturbing the dreams of those
who spend most of their time and thought in
abortive efforts to "keep the 'nigger' in his
place" — as if any man or race could have a
place in the world's thought and effort which
he did not make for himself! In our grand
Republic, at least, it has been so often demon-
strated as to become proverbial, that the door
of opportunity shall be closed to no man, and
that he shall be allowed to have that place in
our national life which he makes for himself.
So it is with the Negro now, as an individual.
Will it be so with him in the future as a race?
[222]
Place in American Life
To answer that we shall first have to determine
that he has a race.
However he may be lacking in pride of an-
cestry and race, no one can accuse the Negro
of lack of pride of Nation and State, and even
of county. Indeed, his pride in the Republic
and his devotion to it are among the most pa-
thetic phases of his pathetic history, from
Jamestown, in 1620, to San Juan Hill, in 1898.
He has given everything to the Republic, — his
labor and blood and prayers. What has the
Republic given him, but blows and rebuffs and
criminal ingratitude! And he stands now,
ready and eager, to give the Republic all that
he has. What does the Republic stand ready
and eager to give him? Let the answer come
out of the mouth of the future.
It is a fair conclusion that the Negro has a
firmer and more assured civil and political
status in American life to-day than at the close
of the Reconstruction period, paradoxical as
this may appear to many, despite the adverse
legislation of the old slave-holding States, and
[223]
The Negro Problem
the tolerant favor shown such legislation by
the Federal Supreme Court, in such opinions
as it has delivered, from time to time, upon the
subject, since the adoption of the War amend-
ments to the Federal Constitution. Tech-
nically, the Negro stands upon equality ' with
all other citizens under this large body of
special and class legislation ; but, as a matter of
fact, it is so framed that the greatest inequal-
ity prevails, and was intended to prevail, in the
administration of it by the several States
chiefly concerned. As long as such legislation
by the States specifies, on the face of it, that it
shall operate upon all citizens equally, however
unequally and unjustly the legislation may be
interpreted and administered by the local
courts, the Federal Supreme Court has held,
time and again, that no hardship was worked,
and, if so, that the aggrieved had his recourse
in appeal to the higher courts of the State of
which he is a citizen, — a recourse at this time
precisely like that of carrying coal to New
Castle.
[224]
Place in American Life
Under the circumstances, there is no alterna-
tive for the Negro citizen but to work out his
salvation under the Constitution, as other cit-
izens have done and are doing. It will be a
long and tedious process before the equitable
adjustment has been attained, but that does not
much matter, as full and fair enjoyment of
civil and political rights requires much time
and patience and hard labor in any given sit-
uation, where two races come together in the
same governmental environment; such as is
the case of the Negro in America, the Irishman
in Ireland, and the Jew everywhere in Europe.
It is just as well, perhaps, that the Negro will
have to work out his salvation under the Con-
stitution as an individual rather than as a race,
as the Jew has done it in Great Britain and as
the Irishman will have to do it under the same
Empire, as it is and has been the tendency of
our law and precedent to subordinate race ele-
ments and to exalt the individual citizens as in-
divisible "parts of one stupendous whole."
When this has been accomplished by the law
[225]
The Negro Problem
in the case of the Negro, as in the case of other
alien ethnic elements of the citizenship, it will
be more gradually, but assuredly, accomplished
by society at large, the indestructible founda-
tion of which was laid by the reckless and
brutal prostitution of black women by white
men in the days of slavery, from which a vast
army of mulattoes were produced, who have
been and are, gradually, by honorable mar-
riage among themselves, changing the alleged
"race characteristics and tendencies" of the
Negro people. A race element, it is safe and
fair to conclude, incapable, like that of the
North American Indian, of such a process of
elimination and assimilation, will always be a
thorn in the flesh of the Republic, in which
there is, admittedly, no place for the integral-
ity and growth of a distinct race type. The
Afro-American people, for reasons that I have
stated, are even now very far from being such
a distinct race type, and without further ad-
mixture of white and black blood, will continue
to be less so to the end of the chapter. It
[226]
Place in American Life
seems to me that this view of the matter has
not received the consideration that it deserves
at the hands of those who set themselves up as
past grand masters in the business of "solving
the race problem," and in accurately defining
"The Negro's Place in American Life at the
Present Day." The negroid type and the Afro-
American type are two very distinct types, and
the sociologist who confounds them, as is very
generally done, is bound to confuse his subject
and his audience.
It is a debatable question as to whether the
Negro's present industrial position is better or
worse than it was, say, at the close of the Re-
construction period. As a mass, I am inclined
to the opinion that it is worse, as the laws of the
States where he is congregated most numer-
ously are so framed as to favor the employer
in every instance, and he does not scruple to
get all out of the industrial slave that he can;
which is, in the main, vastly more than the
slave master got, as the latter was at the ex-
pense of housing, feeding, clothing and pro-
[227]
The Negro Problem
viding medical service for his chattel, while the
former is relieved of this expense and trouble.
Prof. W. E. B. DuBois, of Atlanta University,
who has made a critical study of the rural Ne-
gro of the Southern States, sums up the indus-
trial phase of the matter in the following
("The Souls of Black Folk," pp. 39-40) :
"For this much all men know : Despite com-
promise, war and struggle, the Negro is not
free. In the backwoods of the Gulf States, for
miles and miles, he may not leave the planta-
tion of his birth; in well-nigh the whole rural
South the black farmers are peons, bound by
law and custom to an economic slavery, from
which the only escape is death or the peniten-
tiary. In the most cultured sections and cities
of the South the Negroes are a segregated ser-
vile caste, with restricted rights and privileges.
Before the courts, both in law and custom,
they stand on a different and peculiar basis.
Taxation without representation is the rule of
their political life. And the result of all this
is, and in nature must have been, lawlessness
and crime."
[228]
Place in American Life
It is a dark and gloomy picture, the substi-
tution of industrial for chattel slavery, with
none of the legal and selfish restraints upon the
employer which surrounded and actuated the
master. And this is true of the entire mass of
the Afro-American laborers of the Southern
States. Out of the mass have arisen a large
number of individuals who own and till their
own lands. This element is very largely re-
cruited every year, and to this source must we
look for the gradual undermining of the indus-
trial slavery of the mass of the people. Here,
too, we have a long and tedious process of evo-
lution, but it is nothing new in the history of
races circumstanced as the Afro-American
people are. That the Negro is destined, how-
ever, to be the landlord and master agricultur-
ist of the Southern States is a probability sus-
"tained by all the facts in the situation; not the
least of which being the tendency of the poor
white class and small farmers to abandon agri-
cultural pursuits for those of the factory and
the mine, from which the Negro laborer is ex-
[229]
The Negro Problem
eluded, partially in the mine and wholly in the
factory. The development of mine and fac-
tory industries in the Southern States in the
past two decades has been one of the most re-
markable in industrial history.
In the skilled trades, at the close of the War
of the Rebellion, most of the work was done
by Negroes educated as artisans in the hard
school of slavery, but there has been a steady
decline in the number of such laborers, not be-
cause of lack of skill, but because trade union-
ism has gradually taken possession of such em-
ployments in the South, and will not allow the
Negro to work alongside of the white man.j
And this is the rule of the trade unions in all
parts of the country. It is to be hoped that
there may be a gradual broadening of the
views of white laborers in this vital matter and
a change of attitude by the trade unions that
they dominate. Can we reasonably expect
this ? As matters now stand, it is the individ-
ual Kegro artisan, often a master contractor,
who can work at his trade and give employ-
[230]
Place in American Life
ment to his fellows. Fortunately, there are a
great many of these in all parts of the Southern
States, and their number is increasing every
year, as the result of the rapid growth and high
favor of industrial schools, where the trades
are taught. A very great deal should be ex-
pected from this source, as a Negro contractor
stands very nearly on as good footing as a
white one in the bidding, when he has estab-
lished a reputation for reliability. The facts
obtained in every Southern city bear out this
view of the matter. The individual black man
has a fighting chance for success in the skilled
trades ; and, as he succeeds, will draw the skilled
mass after him. The proper solution of the
skilled labor problem is strictly within the pow-
er of the individual Negro. I believe that he
is solving it, and that he will ultimately solve it.
It is, however, in the marvellous building up
of a legal, comfortable and happy home life,
where none whatever existed at the close of the
War of the Rebellion ; in the no less stupend-
ous development of the church life, with large
The Negro Problem
and puissant organizations that command the
respect and admiration of mankind, and owning
splendid church property valued at millions of
dollars ; in the quenchless thirst of the mass of
the people for useful knowledge, displayed at
the close of the War of the Rebellion, and
abating nothing of its intense keenness since,
with the remarkable reduction in the illiteracy
of the mass of the people, as is eloquently dis-
closed by the census reports — it is in these re-
sults that no cause for complaint or discourage-
ment can be found. The whole race here
stands on improved ground over that it occu-
pied at the close of the War of the Rebellion;
albeit, even here, the individual has outstripped
the mass of the race, as it was but natural that
he should and always will. But, while this is
true and gratifying to all those that hope the
Afrc- American people well, it is also true, and
equally gratifying that, as far as the mass is
concerned, the home life, the church and the
school house have come into the life of the
people, in some sort, everywhere, giving the
[232]
Place in American Life
\\hole race a character and a standing in the
estimation of mankind which it did not have at
the close of the war, and presaging, logically,
unless all signs fail, a development along high
and honorable lines in the future; the results
from which, I predict, at the end of the ensuing
half century, builded upon the foundation al-
ready laid, being such as to confound the
prophets of evil, who never cease to doubt and
shake their heads, asking: "Can any good
thing come out of Nazareth?" We have the
answer already in the social and home life of
the people, which is so vast an improvement
over the conditions and the heritage of slavery
as to stagger the understanding of those who
are informed on the subject, or will take the
trouble to inform themselves.
If we have much loose moral living, it is not
sanctioned by the mass, wedlock being the rule,
and not the exception ; if we have a vast volume
of illiteracy, we have reduced it by forty per
cent, since the war, and the school houses are
all full of children eager to learn, and the
[233]
The Negro Problem
schools of higher and industrial training can-
not accommodate all those who knock at their
doors for admission ; if we have more than our
share of criminality, we have also churches in
every hamlet and city, to which a vast major-
ity of the people belong, and which are insist-
ently pointing "the way, the light and the
truth" to higher and nobler living.
Mindful, therefore, of the Negro's two hun-
dred and forty-five years of slave education
and unrequited toil, and of his thirty years of
partial freedom and less than partial opportun-
ity, who shall say that his place in American
life at the present day is not all that should be
reasonably expected of him, that it is not cred-
itable to him, and that it is not a sufficient
augury for better and nobler and higher think- \
ing, striving and building in the future?
Social growth is the slowest of all growth. If
there be signs of growth, then, there is reason-
able hope for a healthy maturity. There are
plenty of such signs, and he who runs may
read them, if he will.
[234]
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